April
Light distant haze on a far off horizon, deepening,
To such an intense blue, as the eyes drift higher, seeking,
To penetrate the mystery of the sky, but cannot do.
Anymore than the mind can know the mystery of You.
Pearl Seeking
A pearl seeking wanderer in the wild came to my door,
Lost and alone, heart-sad, sorry, world-weary and poor.
The way to the land of prosperity passed my door,
I pointed it out and even offered to do much more.
But that stranger, of my advice, felt very unsure.
I wonder when again that beggar will find my door,
For before leaving to become even more foot sore,
They dropped here, the pearl they were looking for.
United
In the heart and the mind and the soul,
Two become one to be made a whole.
Come bind with the cord of sweetest love,
Two souls blessed by the holy ones above.
Early Morning Thoughts
Wake with the thought of love, like a true, love-drunk, lover,
Chase away all other thoughts, and every lingering hangover,
Make the morning prayer in the heart, to sit at love’s door,
Be the empty cup that into it love, the eternal Saki may pour.
Make love the early morning ablution, and more over, lover,
The prayer carpet, prostration, and confession or whatever,
Your particular religion demands, Be not content until,
Every corner of the heart and mind with love alone you fill.
Make love the essential daily chore that cant be ignored,
What though things you do or say seem human and flawed,
Love turns every kind of man-made error and imperfection,
Into an appreciation of the eternal, timeless, perfection.
And if, for a moment, you dont feel love, then kneel in the heart,
And beg, pray and earnestly implore. Don’t relent or depart,
Until love turns to you again and bids your heart to rise,
For love is the competition, the daily fight, and the prize.
If you find fears lingering, that this love is all craziness,
Ask love to bless that fear, (while for the day you dress),
And keep on with cultivating the constant company,
Of love, in all you hear, do, think, feel, plan for, or see.
For the real fear is that at life’s end you might have to say,
I didn’t love as much, or as long, or as well, every day,
As I should have, could have, or would have liked to do.
So do it, while divine breath you have in the body too.
So, (as you head for the door to catch that bus, train or plane),
Do not let all this business your heart from love’s thought constrain,
You depart, as you did when God breathed Himself into your clay,
You will return, God willing, at the end of an extra-ordinary day
Here is a Mystery
The essence of Presence, is the presence of the Essence,
True is the Essence that’s made manifest in Presence.
A myriad of pretences seem to obscure the Essence,
But pretences in truth rely on the truth of the Essence.
In the chamber of a myriad mirrors lover and beloved kiss,
Countless times reflected was that kiss and its great bliss.
Each reflection thought the kiss was uniquely hers and his,
But there was truly only one lover and beloved and one kiss.
Thoughts like these are in the dust of the doorstep of Hafiz,
Pray tell why anyone that doorstep would hesitate to kiss.
The longer you linger there the more enriched your heart is,
In the encyclopedia of your mind he makes so many entries.
Maybe if I stay long enough he will eventually grant me entry,
And wave away the fierce, justice-dealing, dutiful sentry.
In the ninth heaven he is, in a palace of pristine pure poetry;
Essence, word, and spirit unite there in a blaze of glory.
To enter there is to shed the load of a million iniquities,
Who can explain it? But be certain more than a mind trick it is.
To be candid I cant be sure who it is who is writing all this,
But it would come as no surprise to me to find it was Hafiz.
Floral-dance
I saw five-petalled, white, eager little flowers, a mini milky way,
Amidst the glory of the galaxy-spanning rose garden today.
They were content enough, I guess, to shine out in their little way,
Until the first drops of sweet rain on their petals began to play.
A momentary little jig, each life receiving flower performed,
Till merry dancing became the order of the hour, it seemed.
As if citizens hearing good news came out to do a gig or two,
But it was only here and there, till the breeze into their midst blew.
Then the dancing spread and it became common place for all to do.
United, in the breeze, ripples into many waves of happiness grew.
As if the call to love, from stars high above, had reached that array,
Of small white-petalled flowers I saw dancing in the garden today.
May '14
Veiled and Open
In all that happens You are hidden, dearly Beloved one,
In good and bad Your hidden hand I see, clear as the sun,
Behind every cloud I know it to be, O give patience to me,
That in storm, as in a warm sunny day, I see Your mystery.
You Have Reached Your Destination
What if our sat-nav’s cool voice should say,
“You want to live, then here is the best way!
Day by day demands of domestic existence,
Drive the heart into a cul-de-sac of silence,
Wake from this dream of daily imperatives,
Neither life, nor love, is here - only relatives.
Return to love-drunk ways and love-drunk living,
Hear the words that love alone is speaking.
Reach out and touch with the heart’s hand,
The beloved’s lips, and try to understand,
Those words that permeate the wakeful mind;
Yes, once again the highway of divine-love find.”
I Was Poor
I was poor then became rich spiritually,
I became rich then found true poverty.
I was lost then the path was shown to me,
Now the path everywhere and nowhere I see.
I was a mass of inner conflicts and misery,
Was shown the peace that struggling can be.
‘I am so sorry’ were the words you waited for,
In that sorrow is the joy we were hoping for.
Present Tense
The future will be the fulfilment of the present,
The present, the actuality of what the past sent.
If you do not wish to repeat yourself, however,
To change the future is presently in your power.
The thoughts you have now you need to control,
The borders of your mind you must try to patrol.
If an evil intent in yourself you happen to detect,
Arrest it and examine it closely and then reject.
Search your heart for something much better,
And fill the vacancy left, with something sweeter.
Do this often enough and smooth the rough way,
That Look
That heavenly beloved looked my way, for just a moment,
Maybe sensing love’s scent, or the happy heart’s movement;
Maybe that beauty just casually turned in my direction,
How is it, it can last forever, one single life-giving moment?
The Enemy
The hidden enemy is subtle and tricky for sure,
Has its ways of hiding and deceiving the pure.
But at last it is revealed, that foe within the heart,
No matter how well practised in deception’s art.
Once you have found it out, bind as best you can,
For, free, it can ruin the life of a woman or a man.
Whatever it tries to do oppose it, and do it sternly,
When it is bound fast only then can you be free.
Ignore protestations of a love that’s not really true,
Make it do the very things it most hates to do.
At the holy Prophet hand his Shaitan took Islam,
Chain your own enemy till it can do no more harm.
Of Course
Many events happen in the course of our lives, of course;
They may seem casual with many an explainable cause.
But as your life draw towards its dead centre, at some point,
And you see The Real Causer’s unity, you say – “Of course!”
Tremulous
Tremulous is the heart, when it finds its affection insulted;
Happy is the heart that finds its passion well regarded.
Restless and dissatisfied is the mind without any content;
Full fed and focused is the mind that has found intent.
Agitated are thoughts, by passing passions made to dance;
At peace is the brain, flooded by a divine remembrance.
Going nowhere is the wagon, that by wild horses was drawn;
In triumph, the carriage whose steeds were disciplined at dawn.
The progress of a row boat in turgid water is heavy going;
Smoothly and easily it glides on fresh water, swiftly flowing.
When the world’s weight sits on the mind, heart and body are heavy;
When love lifts it off again, suddenly, everything else seems easy.
Beyond
Only the daily giving and receiving of love, is living truly;
Beyond being and not-being, only Love is existing really.
Beyond belief is the certainty of the dead who are living;
Beyond custom is the Beloved's consummate love giving.
Beyond precept and prayer is the pearl-piercing perception,
Of the love worshippers whose early morning recitation,
Is a love incantation, applauded in the galaxy-transcending
Chamber of the heart, by souls there perpetually residing.
Will
If it is intended by that Will that all are subject to,
To bring you to a place where knowledge you accrue,
Or to a place where spirit and matter become one,
Or where your eyes shine brighter than a sun;
Then that Will will bring in to being what you need,
And without you realising will ensure you succeed.
Failures will become retrospective triumphs easily,
And that which that Will intends will come to be.
If the question of effort arises in your doubting mind,
Effort is what you get from that Will, you will find;
For effort is a name for will and that Will, will will,
The effort required; and accept that Will you will
Colours
White clouds sailing by
Very, very, very, high
Pink, pink, the rose glows
Green, green, meadows.
Blue, blue, blue skies,
Brown, brown, brown eyes,
Light white distant peaks,
Hear how that parrot speaks,
Of far off sailing ships
And close pink smiling lips,
Blue, blue, blue skies,
Brown, brown, brown eyes,
Silver white the river winds
Yellow gold the sun shines,
Lit by a heavenly kiss
Is a perfect day like this
Blue, blue, blue skies,
Brown, brown, brown eyes,
How brightly colours shine
In love’s rich, ruby-red wine,
Night black pupils see,
By the light of eternity
Blue blue blue skies,
Brown brown brown eyes,
There is a heavenly unity,
Dressed in all this variety,
Flowing from the artists brush
Glowing in the lover’s blush.
Blue, blue, blue skies,
Brown brown brown eyes,
Silver in the moonlight,
The winding river shines bright,
Lit by a heavenly kiss
Is a perfect night like this.
Child
Where were you, child of a most lovely mood,
Away from us life’s game you may have played;
And on that chequered board may have moved;
But now you come to see if the beloved approved.
To the Mango
You came in my mind but your body didn’t follow,
Until you arrive all I can do is to eat my sorrow!
The flavour of you will fill the hollow in my heart,
And only soft flesh will remain for me to swallow.
Hidden Beauty
Hid in every kind of form see that one’s beauty;
Only to the eye of self does anything seem ugly.
When the beloved glances at weeds, however briefly,
A bouquet of choicest flowers they appear to be.
The sleep of ignorance departs, and eye’s see truly,
When like a baby with wide-eyed wonder we see.
If I Didn't Know
If I didn’t know that in drudgery or boredom You can be found,
I’d have missed many blessings – many a secret, profound.
If you hadn’t shown me how doing nothing can lead to You,
Or how the weight of work can suppress the mischief of ego,
Or how if sitting in company with nothing of interest to say,
One can yet find You, if one looks for You in the right way;-
I would have thought all these things were just a hindrance,
And my vain ‘spirituality’ would have led me a sorry dance.
Microphone
Come cute little microphone, lets have a little love affair,
You sit on my lapel, and I’ll pretend you are not there.
Oh yes I feel your unblinking look, as I tenderly unhook you,
But what I tell to you, you tell to too many others too.
The Sun Seen through Clouds
High, light-suffused white clouds. Sunlight so penetrating,
So intense, that it is vapour burning. Cloud, a light-containing
Mist? No! It is light diffusing? A display almost too bright,
For the eye, but in its midst the concentrated source of light,
Is too bright for that organ; almost brain burning in intensity.
The sun – such a short word for a manifestation of divinity -
Makes the brilliance of that silver light of the clouds seem
Almost grey today. Light within light you could say, a dream-
Dissipating display, that makes you turn your head away,
But draws you back too. Diamond bright, set in a white-gold ring,
Illuminating the utter dark of non-existence, turning it to blue.
What a palette the Artist has, and in that sun what an eye too.
In like fashion we see the Will of God, all pervading, penetrating.
Mediating, like the cloud, we see the Will of heaven is conveying,
To souls concealed within the human clay, the business of the day;
More nuanced, as they say, but more bearable to the hapless clay.
It is high summer, carefree days to treasure, outer and inner,
The intensity of love within hearts is diffused in happy leisure,
In love affairs, in gatherings for pleasure, in walks, on beaches,
Visits to churches, country mansions, reading, hearing speeches.
Tending gardens, picking fruit, eating or even simply lounging.
Like a sun midst cloud, love, the mist of being is illuminating.
And you, the beauty of your personality likewise pervades too,
The flesh, blood and bone of the body; it comes shining through.
Life is manifest in living, as generosity is manifest in giving,
Superiority in forgiving. In humility grandeur you are showing.
By loose white shirt or pale-blue cotton dress, is expressed,
The beauty of your form. In kind deeds the mind is dressed.
An Invitation to Lose Your Head
Ah though that beauty has left me an impression on a screen,
With companionship now that would-be lover became too mean.
The eye of attention has wandered into greener seeming meadows,
Lovely one, do you prefer to be there amongst deepening shadows?
Walk again with me on the daily-washed, sun-bleached, beach of life,
Come where the sunlight sets the waves afire, let go of daily strife.
Cut off the head of self and the limitations the rough shell imposes,
For when that head has rolled off there is more than one supposes.
First imagination and then inward vision reveal vistas newly created;
And moment by moment bloom fresh sweet-scented roses, unlimited.
Each a galaxy spanning universe ready to open out for you to explore.
Linger awhile of course, you can’t avoid it, then look for yet more.
The generous gardener it is who is showering roses on you freely,
Kiss the hand and hear him say, “So glad you came here to see me”.
Aug 31st 2014
Leave me to Love
Weary, life-denying thoughts, half submerged – depart!
Leave me to practice living and perfecting that fine art.
Leave me to love, and life building, and to giving birth,
To transforming into fine constructions this raw earth.
Greed, lust, anger, fear, sloth and worse, I happily take,
From them, mansions of light for the lovers I will make.
Even hate, shame, and guilt I will gather as required,
Base metals that the fire of love can shape as desired.
For on the day that the beloved chooses to enter in,
Into glamorous decorations will be turned every sin.
If the secret of this my intention is not from you hid,
Come and learn to live as before you never really did.
Between
In the Beloveds anger there is a love that’s profound,
In the Beloved’s kindness, some hardness can be found.
In the kiss of love, death is found; in the death blow - love,
Between the Mercy and the Wrath of God from above,
Seek with sincerity the way to pass, and the way to live.
To the unity beyond this duality - O guidance to us give.
Complementary are the qualities that make possible life,
Embrace them both within and be free from foolish strife.
Narrow the Way
Vast is the field of all we call human activity,
This universe too has such seeming immensity;
In the originating sphere of Divine activity,
All this size is reduced to a mere relativity.
Between the two, however, there is a way to go,
No wider than an umbilical cord, so narrow.
It has been called the door of absolute unity,
Where many become one; such a singular entry.
Like a heavenly kiss, the sole point of contact, only,
Whence flows the Divine into our fragile humanity.
Oct 28th 2014
Hafiz's Heart
Being here, inside the heart of Hafiz, can there be any surprise,
If from every side mystic thought in rhyme continues to arise.
The walls of this great palace are alive; a well constructed song!
Inside, deep rivers of red wine, shining, bliss-full, glide along.
And dark-eyed, long-haired, beauties stand in lines, many deep,
With musicians fine enough to make all those beauties weep.
Inside the high dome, stars look down with knowing winks,
While from finely formed vessels deeply my eye drinks,
Beyond all this there is a true man, the ruby, metaphorically,
One with whom lies the wisdom of Love's deepest mystery.
O Hafiz see the many black books this beggar has written,
Since to the wilderness of Love, Zahuri’s little life was given.
The Lover's Defence
The state of 'rend' is one the pious cannot comprehend,
Though thought police those drunks try to apprehend.
Even if five times a day they draw back a little from it,
They stain the prayer carpet with wine even as they sit.
To one who has no knowledge of it one cannot explain,
How it is when with the Beloved the lover has once lain.
Come cease your criticism and be resigned at last,
Would you really like to have someone break their fast.
The wise say it is better from this world to stay away,
so, don’t carp but for your own enlightenment pray.
Honey
You are the honey in the honey trap that got eaten quietly,
The trap remained intact, but honey, where is the honey?
The beloved came so quietly and with such deft skill,
Took the honey without tripping the trap; its intact still.
Only by the twinkle in its eye could you ever tell,
The cat purloined the cream and got away as well.
The pearl has gone, the shell is empty now, is it not?
But the necklace on the beloved a little longer has got.
Hanging round the beloved's neck many souls you will see,
A trail of corpses litter the road - beasts all killed by beauty.
Heart to Heart
To the naked eye the rooms seems ordinary enough,
But this home is dressed in you, strangely enough.
This address is your heart, somehow it seems,
Can you see me moving about it in your dreams.
There is a way between heart and heart the sage said,
Can you sense me living in your heart and head.
Vast it is, the human heart, when you enter,
Tier upon tier without periphery or centre.
If I dance inside your heart or even sing,
I wonder if a smile to your face will it bring?
Will even your body feel inside it my movements ,
The way a mother feels a child move at moments?
Well, before I have to depart from your heart,
I'll water the plants; tidy a bit so it looks smart.
Its beautiful sitting here warmed by your love's fire,
Its a home within a home and has décor I admire.
So do not think I wont return, and very often,
May this thought the sadness of going soften.
Fajr (Dawn Prayer)
There is a time in the morning when talking to you,
Seems the right thing to do. Just comes naturally.
Then its easier to see you and hear your words too.
Yes its true, the prayer of dawn is heard clearly.
What separates you and me disappears, it seems,
And night dreams turn tail and scuttle away,
But thoughts of you stay, whilst all my schemes,
And all other themes, concerning the day,
Dormant lay; between your hands they are really,
Not just twenty four hours, but for the short breath,
(Inhaling and expiring once before infinity),
That we call a long life and a good death.
Stepping Stone
I was in a kind of confused malaise today,
All I could say, was, ‘Have you gone away?’
Business is busy outside, but my business is you.
There’s no life but life lived in you! What to do?
There is no love but the love coming from you!
Yours is the only door worth going through.
What has happened to yesterday’s ecstasy,
I can’t say; till your heart’s arms embrace me.
Your holding is not like any other; no, not so!
Inside and out unite, and together they flow.
Flow as, when you toss your head, your hair,
Tumbles with abundant abandon everywhere;
And in its wistful waves the soul and body goes,
Wherever the wind wishes, wherever it blows.
Abundant is your charm designed to disarm,
And although my heart beats fast with alarm,
I happily abandon all I thought was good and true.
Everything I would give up just to unite with you.
Only then do you show me beyond that ecstasy,
And what’s meant by life forever lived in you I see.
Sweet
What’s this talk of sweetness with candy got to do
Sweetness gets its sweetness, sweet one from you.
What’s this talk of wine, when wine gets drunk on you,
You are the wine I drink and when I drink, I drink you.
Heart to Heart
To the naked eye the rooms seems ordinary enough,
But this home is dressed in you, strangely enough.
This address is your heart, somehow it seems,
Can you see me moving about it in your dreams.
There is a way between heart and heart the sage said,
Can you sense me living in your heart and head.
Vast it is, the human heart, when you enter,
Tier upon tier without periphery or centre.
If I dance inside your heart or even sing,
I wonder, a smile to your face will it bring?
Will even your body feel inside it my movements ,
The way a mother feels a child move at moments?
Well, before I have to depart from your heart,
I'll water the plants; tidy a bit so it looks smart.
Its beautiful sitting here warmed by your love's fire,
Its a home within a house and with décor I admire.
Don't think for a moment because I am for now departing,
To this house and home I love I wont often be returning.
Sceptic
Hey you sceptic get out of my heart,
You always try to belie love's way,
I guess you think you are very smart,
To sit there quietly and this love betray.
Traitor, thief of time, do you think I don't see,
You are trying to sabotage life's meaning!
To see what you would do I left you purposely,
Now be on your way, or stop your plotting.
This vast heart has room for love, and that's all,
For love has no limitation nor any boundary,
Depart and no more whisper to me; don’t stall,
With words from your half baked brand of piety
Mountains
(the holy Qur'an makes many references to mountains as holding
the earth in place).
Here is a thought – those mountains that hold the earth so firmly,
Is it to holy ones, holy writ is referring? Towering they are.
From them, bubbling like melted mountain snow, flowing freely,
Come blessings; and compassion as pure as light from a star.
Say No
Say no to the sticky sweets of sentimentality,
Say yes to fine sentiments, spoken sincerely.
Say no to routine words that have no flavour
Of gratitude for God's grace and endless favour,
Say yes to heart-touching words, giving shelter,
Say no to weasel words written only on water,
Say yes to words crackling with celestial fire,
That, with love's essence, heart and soul inspire.
Say no to a life that has no taste of ecstasy,
Say yes to the death of selfish egocentricity.
Say no to the idol of this foolish fantasising,
For the reality of a life of love it is preventing.
Say no to sleeping through your allotted years,
Say yes to waking to the wisdom of the Pirs,
Say no to negativity and also to any doubt,
That it is love and love alone that our life is about.
March 21st
Iqra
Guardians of the garden; those leafy trees - upright normally,
Dance, entranced, like lascivious beauties, when your look they see.
Many brooms, brushing, like lover’s eyelashes, the entrance hall,
When the wild wind announced, with bluster, you are about to call.
In the excitement of anticipation the flowers are in a flurry,
Your coming they have been waiting for, but now they’re in a hurry.
Is this not how it was when the Lord of Mysteries got the call?
Incited to ‘Recite, Recite, Recite!’; souls were in a fluster,
Not a whisper of resistance could their natures try to muster,
When they discovered, at last, who was to be their real master.
For mankind a great boon, for man’s enemy – a disaster.
Lovers you made of so many souls, they all fell headlong for you,
They could no longer resist those words that rang so clear and true.
May 15
The Flow of Love
When the flow of love is there, it is there,
We become one and no longer just a pair,
Or a threesome or a crowd or a country,
No longer labourer divided from the gentry,
No longer a stranger, refused admission.
That for which all humanity has long striven,
Arrived as a gift and a gift not to be denied.
There is no cause for pride in a gift received,
Only for gratitude and feeling relieved.
No more concerned with hardship or ease,
The one who has love is an easy one to please.
Smile
Those sweet lips of yours smiled inside me,
Literally you kissed my heart.
Those soulful eyes of yours, in my memory,
Stay, and simply won't depart.
Of many sins I am certainly just as guilty,
As love is, of tearing me apart.
But for sins there is the hope of mercy,
I see no cure for a love sick heart.
Worry, Doubt and Diffidence
O Worry, you plough my brow into furrows!
O Doubt, your little darts and longer arrows,
Puncture my hopes for a better tomorrow,
And make each today - dry, dull and narrow.
O Diffidence, your dithering is decidedly,
The death of a kind, carefree, and happy me.
You guys – are a pain in the neck actually,
Yes, metaphorically but also physically.
Fortunately, I have a friend who will know,
How to make you melt, like winter snow,
In the spring sun's all embracing glow;
A Moses who will say, “Let my friend go!”
Who will wreak on your trickery, destruction,
With the dragon fire of eternal satisfaction.
Who will show in every present little action,
Its truth, yes its timeless divine implication:
Who will shoot an arrow straight and true,
That all three darknesses will pass through -
To strike the heart – and if the heart it hurts too,
Its the pain of love - life for me; death for you.
For Ramadan 2015
The one who seeks by the One God to be fed,
To this great fortune how have they been led?
This one knows fasting means feeding, inside,
This one by the One God was given a guide.
Love Drunk
There is sadness in me now that the storm has passed over,
I wait and wait but have yet to discover true love in any other..
On the edge claimants hover, and speak of what they would do,
But no one else it seems has the love power that I found in you.
Sometimes I ponder as to whether writing about love is wise;
(That I find it therapeutic though should not come as a surprise),
But then I strike a streak, a rich vein of gold in my heart’s mine,
And then it’s more than mere therapy, it’s talking to the Divine.
Love poetry is really just wine, heated up and bubbling over,
It puts an end to endless internal conversations, however,
And that is something! No way is that an incidental factor;
But the love-drunkard must hide; or else become an actor -
For with the drunk the sober have a constant bone of contention,
That leads to endless misunderstandings and at times, tension.
This much one could say; it better by far to be a drunken lover,
Than to be drunk on the pride of being wise and always sober.
With You I try divest myself of the apparel of false modesty,
Though Lord, a covering for my many sins may You ever be.
I know I am drunk on love poetry when I distinguish no longer,
Which line is from me and which line is your perfect answer.
recent Zahuri poetry: page 1