New Islamic Haiku & Commentary

America now
has its own “burning Bush,” so
will prophets prevail?

Are we witnessing Allah’s Justice come round, with our hell-bent government leaders systematically flaming out, one by one?  Are we seeing the papered-over arrogance and incompetence coming apart before our eyes, the nakedness of the emperor finally in full spotlight… (as Allah says, He’s able to [...]

Poem: Would Joy Pervade Us?

WOULD JOY PERVADE US?

What if the machinery of time were just a
little motor somewhere like one of those
Erector Set motors behind a little curtain
near an open window on the third floor
whizzing a little as its gears turn and
everything that occupies any kind of space
grand small macrocosmic microcosmic
danced to its frail tune even those deep space
barely [...]

Poem: Here’s a Row of Innocuous Boxes

(Here’s a poem I came across from my book, Salt Prayers, as I was looking for poems to read this weekend at the Philadelphia Book Festival… a bit of innocuous meter and rhyme for a change… veiling a bit less innocuous meaning?)

HERE’S A ROW OF INNOCUOUS BOXES
Here’s a row of innocuous boxes,
some of them rattle, [...]

Islamic Haiku and commentary

“Muhammad” in clouds…
Peace be upon him, and us…
we all drift away!
The world is a porous place, that in the world of physics might be particles and might be waves. Allah in the Qur’an says to see His signs on the horizon and in the self. But in reality, both are porous, both are [...]

Poem: What Resists Illusion

(a poem from a newly published Ecstatic Exchange book, Underwater Galaxies, this graphic being a detail from its cover…)

WHAT RESISTS ILLUSION
The sorcerer commanded the snowman
but the snowman kept on melting
The swan remembered its ugly duckling childhood
and shook its beautiful head
The cold damp room tried to be warm on its own
but inside people shivered as [...]

Poem: Peace be Upon Him

 
PEACE BE UPON HIM
Peace be upon him who appeared among us in this
world covered in dust a shining light
A speck of that same light is in all of us needing
only his bellows to blow it brighter
Peace be upon him who in his time of innocence
was the focal point of miracles that happened
around him
We don’t see [...]

Haji Noor Deen reads 3 Classical Chinese poems / Abdal-Hayy reads the English

(I’m looking for his name at the beginning intro with the idea to say it all [Haji Noor Deen Mi Guang Jiang], but then decide to go with the shorter version I know so well, though it looks like I may not…)

Poem: The Puzzle… “I sit in a Chinese labyrinth…”

the-puzzle-4.mp3

THE PUZZLE
for Malika
I sit in a Chinese labyrinth
just off the main hall, for I can hear
elegant conversation within.
Teak polished to mirror smoothness shows me myself
as a man with a ladder face
on a plumaged neck of grouse or
ruffed pheasant. Hands like jade
tongs. It’s an
astonishing transformation, and only because
I couldn’t answer the supreme puzzle.
I was given [...]

Video: Golden Bees (from Underwater Galaxies)

POEM: GOLDEN BEES… like drops of honey with wings

 
GOLDEN BEES
Golden bees like drops of honey with wings
appear at the open windows of our heart
It’s always a bright summer day there and the
light seems to come from a non-dimensional source
Water flows in indeterminate directions and fountains
confound us with their spray seeming to go from both
the deep centers and extreme tips of their arcs
These bees [...]