i've come again

i've come again

like a new year

to crash the gate

of this old prison
i've come again

to break the teeth and claws

of this man-eating

monster we call life

i've come again

to puncture the

glory of the cosmos

who mercilessly

destroys humans

i am the falcon

hunting down the birds

of black omen

before their flights

i gave my word

at the outset to give my life

with no qualms

i pray to the Lord

to break my back

before i break my word

how do you dare to

let someone like me

intoxicated with love

enter your house

you must know better

if i enter

i'll break all this and

destroy all that

if the sheriff arrivesi'll throw the wine

in his face

if your gate

keeper pulls my hand

i'll break his arm

if the heavens don't go round

to my heart's desire

i'll crush its wheels

and pull out its roots

you have set up

a colorful table

calling it life and

asked me to your feast

but punish me if

i enjoy myself

what tyranny is this

the arc of mallet

Don't go anywhere without me

Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,

or on the ground,

in this world or that world,

without my being in its happening.

Vision, see nothing I don't see.

Language, say nothing.

The way the night knows itself

with the moon,

be that with me.

Be the rosenearest to the thorn

that I am.

I want to feel myself in you

when you taste food,

in the arc of your mallet

when you work,

when you visit friends,

when you goup on the roof

by yourself at night.

There's nothing worse

than to walk out along the street

without you.

I don't know where I'm going.

You're the road,

and the knower of roads,

more than maps,

more than love.

unselfed

A moment of happiness,

you and I sitting on the verandah,

apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.

We feel the flowing water of life here,

you and I, with the garden's beauty

and the birds singing.

The stars will be watching us,

and we will show them

what it is to be a thin crescent moon.

You and I unselfed, will be together,

indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.

The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar

as we laugh together, you and I.

In one form upon this earth,

and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

Confused and distraught

Again I am raging, I am in such a state by your soul

that everybond you bind, I break, by your soul.

I am like heaven, like the moon, like a candle by your glow;

I am all reason, all love, all soul, by your soul.

My joy is of your doing, my hangover of your thorn;

whatever side you turn your face,

I turn mine, by your soul.

I spoke in error;

it is not surprising to speak in error in this state,

for this moment I cannot tell cup from wine,

by your soul.

I am that madman in bonds who binds the "divs";

I, the mad man,am a Solomon with the "divs",

by your soul.

Whatever form other than love raises up its head from my heart,

forthwith I drive it out of the court of my heart,

by your soul.Come, you who have departed,

for the thing that departscomes back;

neither you are that, by my soul,

nor I am that, by your soul.

Disbeliever, do not conceal disbelief in your soul,

for I will recitethe secret of your destiny, by your soul.

Out of love of Sham-e Tabrizi,

through wakefulness or nightrising,

like a spinning mote I am distraught, by your soul

"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2" A. J. ArberryThe University of Chicago Press, 1991

I have been tricked by flying too close

I have been tricked by flying too close

to what I thought I loved.

Now the candleflame is out,

the wine spilled

,and the lovers have withdrawn

somewhere beyond my squinting.

The amount I thought I'd won,

I've lost.

My prayers becomes bitter

and all about blindness.

How wonderful it was to be for a while

with those who surrender.

Others only turn their faces on way,

then another, like pigeon in flight.

I have known pigeons who fly in a nowhere,

and birds that eat grainlessness,

and tailor who sew beautiful clothes

by tearing them to pieces.

intellectual & lover!

The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away.
afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love
is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone.
even surrounded by people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
get nothing. He's mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

Reason says, "I will beguile him with the tongue;

"Love says, "Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul."

The soul says to the heart, "Go, do not laugh at meand yourself.

What is there that is not his,

that I may beguile him thereby?

"He is not sorrowful and anxious and seeking oblivionthat

I may beguile him with wine and a heavy measure.

The arrow of his glance needs not a bow

that I should beguile the shaft of his gaze with a bow.

He is not prisoner of the world,

fettered to this world of earth,

that I should beguile him with gold of the kingdom of the world.

He is an angel, though in form he is a man;

he is notlustful that I should beguile him with women

.Angels start away from the house wherein this formis,

so how should I beguile him with such a form and likeness?

He does not take a flock of horses,

since he flies on wings;his food is light,

so how should I beguile him with bread?

He is not a merchant and trafficker in the market of the world

that I should beguile him with enchantment of gain and loss.

He is not veiled that I should make myself out sick andutter sighs,

to beguile him with lamentation.

I will bind my head and bow my head,

for I have got outof hand;

I will not beguile his compassion with sickness or fluttering.

Hair by hair he sees my crookedness and feigning;

what'shidden from him

that I should beguile him with anything hidden.

He is not a seeker of fame,

a prince addicted to poets,

that I should beguile him with verses and lyrics and flowing poetry.

The glory of the unseen form is too great for me

to beguile it with blessing or Paradise.Shams-e Tabriz,

who is his chosen and beloved - perchance

I will beguile him with this same pole of the age.