God hath treasures beneath the Throne, the keys whereof are the tongues of poets.
- a saying of the Prophet (pbuh)
Alhamdulillah!
Welcome to the 3rd Annual Sufi Poetry Carnival, co-hosted by our brother Sadiq of the highly acclaimed Technology of the Heart blog.
The Carnival will run from April 7th to April 30th, during National Poetry Month in the US, and will be posted on our blogs on May 7th, inshallah. The Sufi theme this year is:
The Mystic Heart
If you have a blog or website, you can submit a direct link of your poem. If you don’t have a blog or website, you can email your submission to the address below, with the subject line: Sufi Poetry Carnival
All May Enter: We are all spiritual beings having a human experience, so may submit their poetry, whether a Sufi or not, as long as the poetry is in English and the Mystic Heart theme is followed.
Send your links and entries to me at: Irvingk1945@gmail.com
And please send a duplicate copy to Sadiq at mysticsaint@gmail.com
We will then each post a selection of the poems chosen
In your light I learn how to love, in your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.
- Rumi
It’s one of those mornings where the fiction and the biography are holding each other tightly. They have just learned that they are two sides of the same coin. The coin is hollow. Inside of it is a microfilm containing all of the ideas that can ever be had. The sides are not going to […]
He had served in the military, married twice and was now waiting for the end of his life to take over the complications he had created and put them to an end. The problem lie in his age, which was forty eight, and his health, which was excellent. He wouldn’t die for a long time […]
Oh the seeker who wishes to learn the chemistry of secrets and follow the path of the ones who have found salvation! If you wish to know yourself, know that the One who created you has created you with two sides. One is your outside and the other is your inside.: Your outside is visible, […]
Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.
Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you.
Last night,
I was lying on the rooftop,
thinking of you.
I saw a special Star,
and summoned her to take you a message.
I prostrated myself to the Star
and asked her to take my prostration
to that Sun of Tabriz.
So that with his light, he can turn
my dark stones into gold.
I opened my chest and showed her my scars,
I told her to bring me news
of my bloodthirsty Lover.
As I waited,
I paced back and forth,
until the child of my heart became quiet.
The child slept, as if I were rocking his cradle.
Oh Beloved, give milk to the infant of the heart,
and don’t hold us from our turning.
You have cared for hundreds,
don’t let it stop with me now.
At the end, the town of unity is the place for the heart.
Why do you keep this bewildered heart
in the town of dissolution?
I have gone speechless, but to rid myself
of this dry mood,
oh Saaqhi, pass the narcissus of the wine.
Tonight is a night of union for the stars and of scattering,
scattering, since a bride is coming from the skies, consisting of a full moon.
Venus cannot contain herself for charming melodies, like the
nightingale which becomes intoxicated with the rose in spring-time.
See how the polestar is ogling Leo;
behold what dust Pisces is stirring up drom the deep!
Jupiter has galloped his steed against ancient Saturn, saying
“Take back your youth and go, bring good tidings!”
Mars’ hand, which was full of blood from the handle of his
sword, has become as life-giving as the sun, the exalted in works.
Since Aquarius has come full of that water of life, the dry
cluster of Virgo is raining pearls from him.
The Pleiades full of goodness fears not Libra and being
broken; how should Aries flee away in fright from its mother?
When from the moon the arrow of a glance struck the heart
of Sagittarius, he took to night-faring in passion for her, like Scorpio.
On such a festival, go, sacrifice Taurus, else you are crooked of
gait in the mud like Cancer.
This sky is the astrolabe, and the reality is Love;
whatever we say of this, attend to the meaning.
Shamsi-Tabriz, on that dawn when you shine, the dark night
is transformed to bright day by your moonlike face.
Painting by Iman Maleki A painting of two young Iranian girls. A girl reading poems from Hafiz for another girl on the roof of a city building!
By Jalaluddin Rumi
That moon, which the sky ne’er saw even in dreams, has returned
And brought a fire no water can quench.
See the body’ s house, and see my. soul,
This made drunken and that desolate by the cup of his love.
When the host of the tavern became my heart-mate,
My blood turned to wine and my heart to kabab.
When the eye is filled with thought of him, a voice arrives :
W ell done, O flagon, and bravo, wine!
Love’s fingers tear up, root and stem,
Every house where sunbeams fall from love.
When my heart saw love’s sea, of a sudden
It left me and leaped in, crying, , Find me.’
The face of Shamsi Din, Tabriz’s glory, is the sun
In whose track the cloud-like hearts are moving.
O SUN, fill our house once more with light!
Make happy all your friends and blind your foes!
Rise from behind the hill, transform the stones
To rubies and the sour grapes to wine!
O Sun, make our vineyard fresh again,
And fill the steppes with houris and green cloaks!
Physician of the lovers, heaven’s lamp!
Rescus the lovers! Help the suffering!
Show but your face – the world is filled with light!
But if you cover it, it’s the darkest night!
—
HOW SHOULD THE SOUL not take wings
when from the Glory of God
It hears a sweet, kindly call:
“Why are you here, soul? Arise!”
How should a fish not leap fast
into the sea form dry land
When from the ocean so cool
the sound of the waves reaches its
How should the falcon not fly
back to his king from the hunt
When from the falconer’s drum
it hears to call: “Oh, come back”?
Why should not every Sufi
begin to dance atom-like
Around the Sun of duration
that saves from impermanence?
What graciousness and what beauty?
What life-bestowing! What grace!
If anyone does without that, woe-
what err, what suffering!
Oh fly , of fly, O my soul-bird,
fly to your primordial home!
You have escaped from the cage now-
your wings are spread in the air.
Oh travel from brackish water
now to the fountain of life!
Return from the place of the sandals
now to the high seat of souls!
Go on! Go on! we are going,
and we are coming, O soul,
From this world of separation
to union, a world beyond worlds!
How long shall we here in the dust-world
like children fill our skirts
With earth and with stones without value,
with broken shards without worth?
Let’s take our hand from the dust grove,
let’s fly to the heavens’ high,
Let’s fly from our childish behaviour
and join the banquet of men!
Call out, O soul, to proclaim now
that you are rules and king!
You have the grace of the answer,
you know the question as well!
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