Inspirations and Creative Thoughts

Mystic Heart | 3rd Sufi Poetry Carnival
Three Poems by Luz Emma Cañas Madrigal
Just me and my soul | Alka Pandya
Hu - so high on you | Roya Jakoby
Dervisha | Amr Rasheed
Layla's Splendor | Doug Roberts
Hamd & Shukr | Narjis Pierre
THE SAINT’S ACHIEVEMENT | Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore
When the Song of Song sings | Deborah O'Brien

Posted: 10 May 2011 03:22 PM PDT

Allah has not made for a human being two hearts (but one) in his interior.

and

Allah knows well the (secrets) of (all) hearts.

Lo! therein are revelations for each steadfast, thankful (heart).

- The Final Testament 33:4, 64:4, 14:5

1.
Greetings of Peace!

Welcome to the 3rd Edition of Sufi Poetry Carnival.

Sufi tradition has given birth to some of the most prominent and celebrated poetry in human history. From the early companions of the Last Messenger, such as Ali ibn Abu Talib to contemporary Sufi Masters, there are many great poets who have come from this inspiring and living stream. The power and beauty of Sufi Path is so blazing that its echo is still present today, and a testimony of that is the fact that a Sufi Poet of 13th century (Rumi) is still the best selling poet in a land (United States of America) which for most part doesn't even understand his language nor his culture. This also speaks on behalf of the power of poetry, which can transcend many artificial boundaries and constructs. While poets are visionaries and seers, poetry can be, not only revelatory but also bridge-builders among hearts, cultures and traditions.

The relation between Sufism and Poetry is inseparable. Sufi poetry has been written in many languages, with many intentions, including for private devotional writing and reading, as healing talisman and as lyrics for music played during sufi remembrance or dhikr.

Scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr mentions in his article: From Poem to Narrative in Sufism:

Sufi literature is deeply rooted in the Noble Quran. (While) the Quran is not poetry in tilt ordinary sense of the word; yet it is supreme poetry with its definite metres and prosody. The first commentary upon the Quran which is the Hadith, although very distinct in style from the Word of God, remains faithful in its poetic qualities, the use of aphorisms and symbolic imagery to the Divine Word. This is particularly true of the sacred hadīths which are so essential to the genesis and later development of Sufi literature.

It is therefore not surprising that the earliest literary expressions of Sufism are in the form of aphorisms and short mystic utterances soon to be followed by poetry. The first example of these utterances are to be found in the Nahj al-bālaglzah of 'Alī ibn Abī Tālib, containing the sayings of the man who was the representative par excellence, after the Prophet of that reality which came to be known later as Sufism.

From Mansur al-Hallāj poetry became the most intimate vessel for the expression of the truths of Sufism, of states and stations too subtle to be expressed in ordinary prose or the language of everyday life. Poetry has continued to serve as a vehicle for Sufism in other Islamic languages whether it be Urdu or Bengali to this day and the tradition of Sufi poetry remains a living one throughout the Islamic world despite the ravages of time and various forms of encroachment upon traditional modes of art and thought in the Islamic world in modern times.

Dana Wilde in her article On Sufism and Poetry writes: "The general Sufi sense of what reality consists in is inherently poetic; it seems not only to parallel the cosmos that a poetic imagination, in the most general terms, conceives, but really seems to embody that version of reality. Poetry is an instrument of awakening and instruction. It is a way of opening the mind to the divine reality, a way of helping people to grow out of the visible into the realm of the invisible."

Following the rich tradition and living link between Sufi Path and poetic expressions of ecstatic hearts, Sufi Poetry Carnival is a small effort to welcome poets from all over the world, mostly through the medium of the internet to contribute. As a collective, this is a witness of contemporary poetry in Sufi genre, inspired by Sufic values / teachings / traditions. Many of the poets are also initiates of the living Sufi tradition.

In each edition of the Sufi Poetry Carnival we pick a theme and this 3rd Edition's theme is: Mystic Heart. The Inner Heart is central to the Sufi Path and among many of the so called definitions of Sufism, it is "the path of polishing or purifying the mystic or inner heart".

Love for the Divine, Ecstatic piety and devotion and Contemplation on Divine Beauty and Majesty - the major domains of Sufism - all of which happen through the mystic heart of human being. As Rumi says in his beautiful poem (translated by Kabir and Camille Helminski):

Surely there is a window from heart to heart:
they are not separate and far from each other.

Two earthenware lamps are not joined,
but their light is mingled as it moves.

No lover seeks union without the beloved seeking;

When the lightning of love for the beloved
has shot into this heart, know that there is love in that heart.

When love for God has been raised in your heart,
there is no doubt that God has love for you.

2.

This edition of the Carnival is jointly hosted by Technology of the Heart and Darvish blog. We heartly thank all those who sent your entries to us. Below are the poems hosted on Technology of the Heart. Click on the title of each poem to read them. The poems are posted in no particular order. Bismillah.

Birth of a Mystical Heart ~ Adonis Papageorgiou

When the Song of Song sings ~ Deborah O'Brien

Befriending my heart ~ Naomi F. Stone

Love Heals ~ Abdur Rahman

Hamd & Shukr ~ Narjis Pierre

Three Poems ~ Luz Emma Cañas Madrigal

Just me and my soul ~ Alka Pandya

The Saint's Achievement ~ Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

Dervisha ~ Amr Rasheed

Swan Song ~ Barsili

Layla's Splendor ~ Doug Roberts

Humility ~ Tiel Aisha Ansari

Hu - so high on you ~ Roya Jakoby

Rest of the poems will be hosted shortly at Darvish blog. Click here to read and enjoy them as well.

Peace!

Three Poems by Luz Emma Cañas Madrigal

Posted: 10 May 2011 03:22 AM PDT

The Dowry

As a token of my love
I offer you my heart
My riches are not of this world
They lie in the hereafter

If it is His will
That we part ways
Through indifference or death
Keep it as a reminder
Of His Love For you
In His generosity
He has replaced my heart
With His own

I am grateful for the Love that this is
And the love that it is not
It is through your humanity
That I have come to love my self more
and your divinity
That I have come to Love God more.

Al-Khem-ist

Lord grant me more patience

With this slow burning process

Of converting my pain to gold

Lovers I have had

But the one that Eludes me

Is my Beloved

I see you in one

Smell you in another

Does the remedy I seek

Lie in a rare flower

That does not even exist

Why have You dispersed your essence

In so many flowers

In which my curiosity

Leads to disappointment

Please reveal the elixir

That heals my ailing heart

Or help me to accept the mystery

Of This alchemical medicine.

Haram

Is it unlawful
That I abandoned everything
In my pursuit of you

A friend for your love
Only God inspires
Such desire

Could it be…
Everything He created
Contains His essence?

Call me a heretic
I am prepared to
Undergo the flame

For I discovered
My Beloved
In the heart
Of an infidel.

- Luz Emma Cañas Madrigal

Luz Emma is a self published Sufi Poet and Healer in the Shadhiliya Sufi Path. Her published book is titled as Impregnated with Desire : A collection of Sufi poetry on love, loss and longing, and some poems from her forth-coming book can be read at her blog, Divan of the Infidel which is dedicated to her recently deceased beloved husband, may his soul find peaceful abode in the presence of the Lord. Her book is praised as: "Impregnated with Desire" is a beautiful meditation on Love, the Divine, and the Self within Divine Love. Reading each work is like deep breathing - peaceful and paceful, probing and revelatory.

Just me and my soul | Alka Pandya

Posted: 10 May 2011 08:35 AM PDT

Somewhere in the pursuits of this worldly life
i asked my Soul.. "why do you speak out of turn ?
All that i have learned and unlearned
with my bonds and possessions..
You reprimand me continuously...
like the pesticides that shrinks the worms
into a crumbling pile of dust...
you infest my Harvest of collections
that i Love so much..."

There came an answer from my soul...
in a whisper that was loud enough:
"No matter what i will never give up... the interruptions that you feel,
For i know i am caged within your pesticided being,
i never give up till i am caged within
until each cell in you is not drenched with the melting snows of Love,
Each path you tread in destiny is one where i can rest in tenderness,
Do you ever think thus with your unforgiving mind?"

i said to my reprimanding Soul... "I will Try.."
"Aah" said my Soul... "Journey with me to those aching heights..
unto the Flight of LOVE.
Two Lovers... You and I and no one else in sight..."

So silently in the darkness of my slumber, i now feel the warmth within,
That evaporates into splendorous haze and misty ways...

Just Me and my Soul.

- Alka Pandya
Mumbai, India

Hu - so high on you | Roya Jakoby

Posted: 10 May 2011 04:46 AM PDT

Hu

Hu - they say it is your greatest name.
Prepare for it's arrival when you are the most unprepared
In the night when the morning dove flies
- gazing at the midnight sun
The beautiful ones are reflecting Hu intoxicating.
The moon is rising at the horizon of your heart.
Shams intoxicating Qamar.
Qamar intoxicating Shams.
Traveller, the cosmos vibrates in you tonight.

So high on you

In the morning
when I wake up
I reach for thy wine
To be drunk and be steady
Steadily intoxicated and madly high
High on you beloved.

The hours pass, the potions of intoxication increase
Fill my heart oh beloved with your medicine, you wine.

Breath into me, inject into me, bring me beyond myself
to you, so all bursts, evaporates, and there is just you..
i am so drunk beloved, so high.

So high on you.

- Roya Jakoby

Dervisha | Amr Rasheed

Posted: 10 May 2011 04:03 AM PDT

She was a dervisha
who picked up tiny stars
the single rays of morning sun
and fed the hungry birds
grains of love and Light

She was a dervisha
who hopped on the waves
gliding with shoals of fish
rising and falling.. incanting
Ya Allah ! Ya Hayy!

She was a dervisha
who sat among the bees
drunk on fragrant flowers
swinging side by side... incanting
Ya Allah! Ya Hayy!

She was a dervisha
who walked in line with ants
eyes brim full of love and light
gingerly trudging ... incanting
Ya Allah ! Ya Hayy!

- Amr Rasheed
Charlottesville, Virginia

Art work: Painting by Rassouli

Layla's Splendor | Doug Roberts

Posted: 10 May 2011 03:38 AM PDT

In the instant I first saw her
I knew I had known her
From a time before the earth had been born.

She glanced at me!
Overcome with desire
I wrenched off my locket of Mary
Cast it in the river.

I returned her gaze
Joked with her to hear her laugh
My ears blessed with a chorus of nightingales.

I touched and caressed her
Became drunk with the scent of her skin
I remember feeling the roundness of her belly
Nestling my cheek in her curls.

Every word of love she spoke to me
Increased her radiance.
Until I could not see her face for the light.

Layla vanished from my gaze
I felt my head had been cut off
My tears overflow the banks of the river.
My name now is Majnun.

In desperation I returned to the river,
Retrieved my silver locket of Mary.
When I picked it up
It turned black in my hand.

~

Layla was gone all winter
That winter was my hell.
What have I to fear of it now?
Because of her I became a lion of courage.

When spring came,
It was Layla winging into the garden like an angel
Like the May breeze she was just as warm.
Every blossom opened in her presence.

I sought her fire
She showed me her light.
I sought her splendor
She revealed her beauty.

I'm now so shattered in her presence
I don't know the moon from the sun
It doesn't matter. They both call out her name.

At night beside her,
Even in the afterglow of love,
I cannot sleep.
All I do is drink her perfume.

At dawn that scented memory disperses
Transmutes into luminous longing
And as that sun rises
A longing rises in every heart
Like some new dawn.

- Doug Roberts

Hamd & Shukr | Narjis Pierre

Posted: 10 May 2011 03:32 AM PDT

Again t'is the time the moon does us beckon

it's Ramadaan, the month of fasting I reckon;

our communal excitement of anticipation

delves now into thirty days spiritual intensive.

A collective sigh of relief can be heard:

The evil one is locked up and Qur'an is the Nights' Bird:

thirty parts to recite, each night to absorb

like a Rose in the Garden the petals unfold:

Forgiveness, Understanding, Charity, Love,

intending for purification of body, mind, soul.

Freedom from addictions and obsessions,

submitting to The One, a 'shahada' profession:

There is only God and the prophetic path

prayer and charity, fasting and pilgrimage:

These practices in the Abrahamic Harmonium

surely touch every devout individuum

and as we grow closer each day and each night,

our Brother- and Sisterhood grows ever so tight:

Bonding, forgiving, seeking out the neighbor,

building new ways to learn from each other.

The Rose in the Garden uncurled to the pearl,

the heart is now purest, reflecting the soul

it's Leilatul Qadr - the Night of Power -

to Mohammed was revealed the Qur'an's Light in this hour,

for all of mankind and throughout all the ages

and each individual it fully engages –

to be available to Allah, to The Mystery that Is;

to receive from the Ever-Living, the All-Knowing,

'cause for real … it's a very simple quiz:

shards of light which we carry throughout

aid in the building of bridges without doubt.

the Eid festival celebrates with child-like joyfulness,

exuberance and laughter, embraces without anxiousness

trusting and loving, in tender understanding,

together we continue on the path to the Garden

creating beauty from what's real should now be outstanding!

I thank Allah, Greatest Ever-Lasting Resource,

And for all of us, Seekers of Truth!

praising and gratefulness become our only discourse.

- Narjis Pierre, 2010
a Ramdaan inspired poem

THE SAINT’S ACHIEVEMENT | Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

Posted: 10 May 2011 03:19 AM PDT

When the saint reached his goal

only a chipmunk took notice
all that light pouring out of his room like a
private aurora borealis just for
Him
and scampered home to tell his wife and kids

for a split second the universe stood still from its
usual flipping back and forth from
existence to non-existence and took a quick
look at itself in the mirror of wonder and wondered
if all its lakes would evaporate all its
peaks eventually crumble all its
tombs keep their tenants cozy until time to
unfold like a magnolia bud into flower

then it was back to business as usual and ten-times
greater radius of illumination around his head
which later worker ants took notice of and
passed along the grapevine
waterfall water cascading at its usual
pleasure babies getting born in sterile
hospitals at their usual rate

while like a newborn deer our saint ecstatically
stumbling in fields of God's glory like so many
sparks from a campfire meeting at the
pinnacle of night or the transformation from a
large top-heavy and earthbound thing to something
suddenly aerial and gliding
free

our friend gravity becoming here now the
dance master of the spirit's freedom from it
our saint's happy stuttering across a very
anti-gravitational threshold in order to
appear to us perfectly normal
saying perfecting normal things such as

those are roses those are thorns

the night on its double axel turns

the forward depends on the backward to
define its place

our life is a split-second of joy before
light descends

- Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore
from Shaking the Quicksilver Pool

When the Song of Song sings | Deborah O'Brien

Posted: 10 May 2011 02:41 AM PDT

When the Song of Song sings -
pours melodies of the gateless gate
endlessly, boundlessly, soundlessly.
All the colours of the rainbow
from cerise to china blue
sit on the edge of eternity.

Spaces between the heart listening
and rational thinking,
seem journeys apart.
Depth goes beyond
the comprehension of time .

And you great Master, great Oneness,
show the poet the magic of the mystic –
treasures deep in the soul.
O sightless sight.
O starry starry night.

- Deborah O'Brien
London, United Kingdom

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