Touba

T O U B A
Touba is a tree in Paradise, as big as a hundred year's journey; The
clothes of the people of Paradise come from the outer parts of its flowers
-Prophet Muhammad
Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.
-Rumi

© 2012 Oludamini
All Rights Reserved

Muhammad
My words come from and back to you
You, the eye within my eye
You, the pearl for whom the heavens’ shells
closed around the earth’s sharp sides
You, the lightning in the clouds
for whom the ocean’s thunder sighs
You, the life inside the light
And the death hidden in breath
You, the pole of all the stars
Your lips are where the East meets West
You, the start and end of love
You, the heart within my chest
You, the dark light hidden in
the brilliance of our time’s sunset
1

Touba
I write to water your love’s tree
And feed its roots sunk in my heart
With tears of ink and songs to drink
Like wine holding a hidden spark
I recite to fan the flames
Licking your leaves and branches
Until your fruit’s light fills my veins
And shines out from my glances
This bright tree scrapes the heaven’s dome
But comes between me and my soul
And fills my eyes, the whole cosmos
With its perfumed and blooming poems
2

Bamba
The moon fell in the desert’s lap
Its dark dunes birthed a brilliant white
His face burned bright black from love’s flames
The longing of the depth of night
A blackness pure, so dazzling
Its shadow is the morning light
The sun squints at his face, blinking
Straining so hard to catch his sight
His dark face so intense and bright
He had to shroud himself in white
Like clouds veiling the Heaven’s gleams
That makes them both hidden and seen
Like scents upon the morning breeze
The echo of a midnight dream
The dazzling dark flows through his veins
Like ink pregnant with poetry
And fills his eyes and skin with verses
Teeming with love’s mysteries
How do you see us from your seat
Beneath the shade of Heaven’s Tree?
The baobabs must look like lightning
Flashing from the earth and falling
Skies must seem a fickle frailty
Whirling ‘round your finger’s ring
The shadow of the shade of God
Leaping from your pure heartstrings
Floods the dry and dusty lands
Sweeping the old bones along
Dancing in the secret rapture
Of the silence of your song
4

Maryam
Nigra sum sed formosa
The quiet gasp before the song
The gentle touch that bests the strong
The silent breath that holds all words
The sweet birdcalls that bring the dawn
Your perfume lends wine its wisdom
And gives the night its mystery
And Nature, her secret rhythms
Your darkness makes my pale eyes see
The night flower that birthed its earth
The moon forms petals ‘round your face
Crowned with the sun, adorned with stars
The heavens spin in your embrace
So pure that scandalous you seem
Like light so bright that it looks black
The dark ocean teeming with gleams
That from these false shores calls me back
Gentle mother, mighty mercy
Meaning of my melodies
Cover me with your warm mantle
Take me in your arms, Lady
And all that’s fair within this world
White stars and golden harmonies
All praise you just because they are
Sewn from threads of your soul’s beauty
5

In a Lover’s face I saw
The darkness of light from the brilliance of shade
The cry of my birth to the sigh of the grave
The root of lightning from the end of the waves
All in one glance from the face of a sage
6

Here is something of her brightness
Take it from me. It is my art.
-Ahmad al-’Alawi
I have no faith except for this:
There’s no sweetness but your kiss
And I know this from your lips
So kiss me in remembered bliss
Make me forget that I exist
8

Be careful when you read this love
These letters are but frozen flames
All it takes is one warm breath
To set these pages all ablaze
You hold a vineyard in your hand
White soil planted with black vines
Press and pour its meanings out
Into the barrels of your mind
Let it age and taste the oak walls
Of your soul’s own curves and lines
Then drink it deep and watch the world
Transform between the glass’ sides
9

What are these dry and hollow words
Beside the taste of your bright kiss?
What is this dark and frozen verse
Beside the warmth of your moist lips?
I’ll pick songs from between my teeth
And roll them over my longing tongue
In search of that secret sweetness
Hidden within in your lips like plums
I’ll pluck my heartstings one by one
To pick out that old melody
The one your fingers used to strum
Love’s notes played on my soul’s body
10

I’ve drunk from your lips so long
My blood became your kisses’ wine
And when night comes, and I’m missing
The music of your pretty eyes
I spill it out from time to time
In pretty shapes and shapely rhymes
and burn it off just to remind
me of the incense in your eyes
Words flee from your beauty
Like so many roaches
Your lashes cast shadows
Of silence like oceans
The light of your eyes makes
My pretty speech worthless
11

I’ve stitched a net of words with love
And cast them reckless to the sea
With songs and prayers and desperate hopes
That it will bring you back to me
Poetry is just postcards
Love’s the journey and its end
Verse is flashes in glass shards
Reflecting the face of the Friend
12

The echo of that sigh born from
the pregnant silence of your mouth
Flows through the world like wind and fire
Breathing all sounds in and back out
Souls like whisps of bright desire
Curl round your lips like your dark hair
Swimming in your voice’s choir
We’re all just breath, words of your prayer
13

The whole world’s but a single verse
A breath of words between your lips
That’s why it’s called a universe
Rhymed with the silence of your kiss
This light you cast into my eyes
burns through the blue veil of the skies
That song you whispered in my ear
has shattered all the heavens’ spheres
These words you’ve carved into my breath
will live long past the mountain peaks
This love you’ve hidden in my breast
will overflow the ocean’s deeps
14

I’ve written out this talisman
To erase my own scribbling hand
These words I whisper in the dark
To silence all except my heart
Into my soul’s tattered remains
I’ve stitched your name like razor blades
Its letters’ shadow on my page
Burns all to light, turns all to flame
Returning all back whence it came
15

We’re all just moving hieroglyphs
Traced by the gods in time’s cold stream
The letters of that ancient script
Rippling across this divine dream
And all our souls are winding scrolls
Inscribed with worlds of singing words
The words whose secret dancing holds
Things never seen and seldom heard
And when the pens return to trees
And ink’s set in eternity
I hope that we’re a pair of verses
Rhymed in love’s sweet harmony
16

Waves’ foam kissing the rocky beach
The ridges in the windswept sands
Sparks flying where blades’ edges meet
The sound of gently clasping hands
The lines around your smiling eyes
Hair shredded from the violin
The rivers’ smooth calligraphy
The lovers’ rustling sheets’ rhythm
Poetry is just the spittle
Sprayed ‘round the mouth of your love’s flute
Dust kicked up by our dancing feet
That’s all this is, and that’s the truth
17

I write for the mute
And not for the talking
I speak with a flute
To make my heart's thoughts sing
It's love for the sun
That makes the seas billow
The love in your eyes
Made this ink its shadow
and the love that we make
is what makes the world go
I sing for the deaf
and I draw for the blind
But I spill my souls' music
only for your eyes
18

I strike sounds against light
And feelings against rocks
Nailing pictures to rhymes
Grinding taste into thought
Throwing verses like sparks
Scattering seeds of flame
Into your soul’s dark
and chattering rain
Like lighting waiting
For thunder’s refrain
My blood’s become ink
Awaiting your name
19

It’s what’s not there that gives what is
Its beauty and that subtle power
To melt our souls into new shapes
And be the garden in the flower
Music’s never divorced its dance
But some souls dance invisibly
And words will always long for song
In speech or ink’s melancholy
It’s like your shadow’s everywhere
This pillow holds your cheek’s outline
I know your finger from this ring
Just like I know your heart from mine
20

The dawn wind came and told my nose
Stories about your about your pretty face
And made my heart bloom like a rose
And set my dark soul all ablaze
My soul’s been tattooed with your name
My eyelids with your winking face
Inscribe your secrets on my heart
Don’t let all this love go to waste
Before you tell me about love…
Pick the stars like silver berries
Peel the orange of the sun
Lick the sugar off the moon
Then tell me where this love’s come from
21

Love
At last, a cure for all my pains
Alas, it’s pain without a cure
A sickness that treats all disease
A ravishing that made me pure
A wound that heals all other scars
A wine that made my head sober
An ocean that dried all my tears
A birth that meant my life’s over
I fell ill heartfirst in this love
There’s neither hope nor remedy
A prison that broke all life’s bars
My friend, please don’t let me be free
A poison that made me immune
To health and all I once thought best
A death in life and life in death
Came to me on your gentle breath
23

I want to give my soul to you
But she’s already in your net
My heart had fallen in your hands
Ever since our eyes first met
When my hand slipped into yours
My heart remembered its promise
The one we made lifetimes before
That I would be all, always, yours
Dust dancing in light
Light dancing through dew
All these subtleties
Bind my heart to you
24

You showed us your face once last night
And we all lost our heads ‘til noon
Your sweet voice echoes in our ears
And our hands grasp at your perfume
In shallow content many sit
Happy just to dream of you
How many wander to their graves
Enchanted by mirage’s dunes
Love-drunk because you’re beautiful
And love is just your beauty’s due
Let them enjoy the sweeter fruits
I want the vine, the bitter root
25

Love is not love that loves itself
Nor lives for its narrow delight
But rather in another's heart
Finds its dark root and its soul's light
But love can only love itself
And like a hungry burning flame
Consumes all lovers and converts
Them to the echo of its name
26

Khamriyya
This life’s too hard to live sober
So drink and try to die a drunk
Heaven’s but a hangover
For those who drink from your mouth’s cup
And when I miss your lips I mix
Love’s memories with words in verse
To warm my soul with little sips
And cool the sharp pain of my thirst
Pour love’s lightning in my heart
Grind my bones to gleaming sparks
Dancing like stars on the tides
My life’s shores end where your love starts
If you spent your life for a drop
It won’t have been in waste
And all your life has been for naught
If you die now without a taste
27

I’m so in love with you
That I’m out of my senses
I’m out of breath and words,
Speared on your sharpened glances
So all I have’s a burning heart
Fed by tears falling like rain
But those whose lips have kissed love’s flame
Can never taste death’s bitter pain
28

Your name
Is the life in my veins
And the light in my eyes
And the salve for my pain
And the breath in my cry is
Your name
I’ll keep beating my heart’s drum
Until it starts to talk
And keep feeding love’s flame my soul
Until my breath has stopped
29

My soul is a string
That’s been stretched in between
Your voice’s Heaven
And my lowly being
I shake like a flame
And shiver with longing
In this cold, your name’s
The warmth of my body
Life runs up and down
For the sake of this sound
A lost melody
Stumbling back to your mouth
30

Love is a hole in the pocket of your soul
And if you try to carry it,
you’ll lose your sleep and mind
And if you try to bury it,
your heart will strike you blind
And if you let it grow,
your life will just unwind
Leaving no stitch of doubt or fear
or anything behind
So stretch your hand down in this hole,
And reach out and grab mine
31

When your soul’s sharpened to a point
And pierces through its own fabric
Then tides of love come rushing in
And overrun all your limits
Dip your finger in my eyes’ ink
trace your name across my lips
May my cheeks never be dry
of tears wrung from your tenderness
32

I was a worthless patch of mud
Until your toes reformed my soul
And left in me a deep impression
A footprint more precious than gold
I was a rusted scrap of iron
Until your face made me a mirror
And your reflection in its frame
Made it a masterpiece revered
Look what a meeting with a match
Did to the candle’s boring life
Imagine what will a kiss from your
Face like the sun will do to mine
My eyes were blind before your glance
My lips were useless, cold and sealed
With just one kiss your sweet mouth spilled
All of life’s mysteries now revealed
33

There’s a little place I know
Where only you and I can go
Where there’s no talking and no need
To do or think or speak, just be
In love, and on love’s music feed
Beneath the shade of ancient trees
Come, let’s be in sunlight dyed
And leave our colours all behind
Come quickly love and don’t be shy
Come in and leave yourself outside
34

Khalwa
There’s a cave in my heart’s depths
That stands above time’s swirling clouds
Where I sit with you, without me
In silence behind life’s mad crowd
There's a beauty in the dark
But it's cold and sharp and dry
Thank God I found it in the warmth
Of your soft and sunset eyes
35

Hung between a sun of hope
And a valley of despair
I swear that I can’t let go
Of this dark lock of your hair
This curled and perfumed memory
I’ve tied around my lonely heart
Not just because it’s your hearts’ key
But for its strength, I’d fall apart
Every thread I follow leads me
Back into your spacious bed
Every strand leads me to think
I’m just a dream inside your head
Just dream in hopeless love
With the sleeper on her bed
An image cast into a mirror
Pining through glass for her seer
36

Crack the thin white china of
My fragile soul’s sad loneliness
Let our melting hearts mingle
Like moonlight on a stream’s surface
Like a scissors’ blades our souls are
Joined at the heart we cut
Through everything which comes between
The secret bonds connecting us
Everywhere we go, our love’s sun
Shines above our wandering heads
And when at night we lay them down
He burns beneath our separate beds
If you climbed beyond the stars
You couldn’t escape from my heart
If I’m absent from your sight I’m
Just too close to see apart
37

Your words tear me to pieces
Each letter, a gleaming blade
My soul is rent to ribbons
At the mention of your name
Every consonant a knife,
And every vowel, a different strike
My hearts’ flesh carved in your image
Your signature writ in love bites
The warmth of your dark lips
Burned a path straight through my soul
And ripped my ribs apart
Leaving in my heart a hole
Only your eyes’ glance could pierce
The pearls of broken hearts
And piece my life together
Tying my end to your start
Your love’s the thread that runs through
The long rosary of my days
The longing wind and fire inside
of my sighs when I pray
You bound me up and tied me down
Burned by oceans, fire-drowned
Stunned to silence by the sound
Of a love once lost, now found
38

I'd be lying if I said
that the dark sparks of your eyes
didn't leap up in my heart
to burn my soul from time to time
I'd be lying if I said
That lightning didn't dance
all through my tired veins
when I think of your glance
I'd be lying if I said
that the coral of your lips
didn't stir up my soul's waves
and drown my shore in your bliss
I'd be lying if I ever tried
to talk about the truth
the best I have is this sad sigh:
I'm dying and I love you
39

I saw that look in your eye last night
And fled from you for my life
I saw a fire in your face
A fierce love that would take my life
I tried to hide, but slowly found
That your love had become my life
All delight now reeked of you
You, the one joy of my life
Your perfume poisoned everything
That once brought pleasure to my life
I tried to write, my ink ran dry
I eat, but your lips drink my life
My bones are your calligraphy
You’ve written the end of my life
When you took my hand in yours
Your other hand reached for my life
You beautiful and greedy thief
You have my heart, why take my life?
…
40

…
I can’t complain, I’d do the same
If I were in your place, my life
And I suppose it’s just your right
You made the love that’s ruined my life
There’s no end to your jealousy
You’ve blocked all the roads of my life
I see you won’t let me go free
Until I’ve given up my life
My shadow can’t resist your light
How can your day refuse my night?
No more words, let’s end this fight
I am yours, and you’re my life
41

I reached out to grab your skirt
But found your arm inside my sleeve
I am nothing but grasping
Nothing is your only need
My one redeeming quality
Is the fact that you love me
May every breath I take give fuel
To your love’s flame in my soul
I’ll keep kissing your picture
‘till love joins my lips to your fingers
And lifts my mouth up to yours
Sweeping my soul in through your doors
42

From black coal, bright flame
From my lips, your name
My two lips are dark and stained
From whispering, at night, your name
My heart, a fireplace, marked and pained
By memories of your soul’s bright flame
Pouring from my mouth like smoke
Dancing before my drunken eyes
Your memory drowns me and provokes
A blurry sight and burning sighs
I drink you like the ocean
Only with thirst satisfied
You burn me in love’s oven
Breathing in the smoke that rises
Don’t leave me for an instant
Or I’ll fade into the sky
Hold my poor soul in your glance
Let me fall into your eyes
43

I have no faith in my faith
And I don’t know what I know
I have no sense of my state
High as heaven or hell-low
My goodness can’t be trusted
And my virtue is on loan
My heart’s hopelessly rusted
And my piety’s a show
My life’s a lie within a dream
Nothing about me’s true
Except for the fact that I love
Whom you love and love you
44

Every mistake I’ve cut my soul on
Has been in search of you
I’ve dived deep into to every sin
Mistaking them for you
I’ve burned myself in fire ‘cause
he reminds me of your eyes
I’ve drowned inside the ocean ‘cause
she sounds just like your sighs
I’ve kissed blades and embraced lightning
Thinking that they were your smile
I’ve chased hurricanes and lions
‘cause they’ve something your style
For love I’ve spent my life
A mad man in a house of mirrors
And only in my last two breaths
Have things begun to clear
Every wrong was right for me
And every right was wrong
And now my soul sings silent
Harmonies within your song
45

Your eyes found mine inside the crowd
The moon like a white flower bloomed
Amongst the weeds of stars and clouds
Your face became my soul’s bedroom
Sailors, let these stars guide you
Back among the shore’s docked ships
But I’ll follow my moon’s coy smile
Over the horizon’s lips
To sip the bright root of its light
That sun that burns both stars and sky
That swallows up both moon and sight
That rises when your eyes meet mine
46

I live to die as a star
Shimmering in your dark eyes’ sky
Swallowing all love’s sorrows
Burning in my borrowed light
Following the fireflies
Through my life’s tall oaks of time
Yesterday seems like a dream
And tomorrow, like a lie
I’ve grown sick of lover’s quarrels
I’ve had it with kisses and bites
No more talking, no stories
Come and take me, now, tonight
47

I’ve wasted my life
For a taste of your love
They told me that I could have been
A millionaire or senator
They said I should have been the one
To fly in space or cure cancer
But when I came down with this love
It ravaged my entire life
How could I ever heal someone
With my heart stuck on your knife
How could I become anything
While living for your sweet nothings
You’re the sole meaning of my days
Like glass beads on a silver string
I’ve spent my life in alleys
High on memories of your hand
Because next to your ocean
The whole world seems worthless sand
…
48

…
You tattooed your name on my soul
Branded your face behind my eyes
And scraped my heart on heaven’s walls
To trace your praise across the skies
Some people don’t ever find love
‘til they’ve laid down to die
And me, my life was over
Ever since your eyes met mine
49

And in melodious accents I
Will sit me down and cry and I
Will wet my cracked soul’s deserts with
Monsoons of moist and heavy sighs
Will make my heart an ocean’s bed
And float amongst the drowned cacti
And wait and wait for your bright face
To come and burn my sorrow dry
And curl up by your night eyes’ fire
In silent joy, like snow, and die
50

Permit me to be candid dear
I've all but been abandoned here
And yours are the only eyes
I've seen with any hint of kind
And this is the only night
I've seen this kind of golden light
That gentleness that promises
A rest for my soul’s worn senses
Like land amidst a roaring sea
Your understanding calls to me
Admit my frantic, graceless love
into your strong and gracious arms
51

Everything has its reason
And reason’s own is love
Below this there is nothing
And nothing is above
52

We’re like the two sides of a mirror
My darkness makes your brilliance clear
Your dark eyes are my sun and moon
My smile, your shadow’s bright perfume
My empty hands your treasury
My broken heart your sovereignty
My blindness is your vision
You’re my freedom, I’m your prison
Gather the shards of my soul scattered
Like sea upon your body’s shore
Melt with a kiss my senses shattered
And let me be your mirror once more
54

You hide behind your self-portraits
As varied as a peacock’s eyes
Camouflaged by reflections
Like truth behind so many lies
Who’s ever seen a mirror’s true face
Or swum the sea behind its waves?
Dark clouds create the sun’s bright rays
I see you in so many ways
A hair on your paintbrush’s head
A splinter in the dancing pen
That’s tracing out your signature
That’s all this is and all I am
I’ll keep chasing your signs until
My pendulum of breath has stilled
I’ve lost my mind trying to find
Your face where my poor heart was killed
You’re everywhere, nowhere to hide
You’re here, but nowhere to be found
Light love’s bright fire in my dark eyes
Teach me to love you in disguise
55

My heart’s a riddle left unsolved
My soul’s a question unanswered
My body used to hide this all
Until last night, I danced with her
You froze my heart with your cold glance
Come warm my soul up with your lips
You broke my life between your hands
So make it better with a kiss
That light inside your eyes’ black night
So soft but brighter than the day
Have you been sleeping with the moon
While the noon sun’s been away?
56

There’s a hole inside my heart
That hides your dark eye’s pupil
There’s a crack between the skies
That I see your heart’s light through
When your fingers brushed my face
I became your branch’s fruit
The apple of each other’s eye
I’m your seed and you’re my root
57

Bubble
The world is warped and twisted in
The prison of bubbles’ prisms
Light seems dark, and shadows bright
And stormclouds seem like stars at night
A vision of curved rainbows spinning
A blindness bright and dizzying
And then I crashed and burst, now free
On pink shores of your mouth’s warm sea
My life is just a series of
whirling visions of you
Swirling through my soul’s kaleidescope,
turned ever new
In my heart’s revolving mirror
I glimpsed you peering through
My soul, my sight began to fade
like dawnlight’s diamond dew
Like summer sky above the sea,
dyed blue all through and true
58

Stars glisten in my heart’s deep well
Like diamonds hidden in a mine
To find the sun at night, look down
A moon-faced Joseph waits inside
Your face floating in my eyes
Stills the waters of my soul
Your breath flowing through my ears
Makes my spirits glow like coals
Your warm lips upon my heart
Melts my leaden frame to gold
59

Your scent crept up in my nose
And carved your face into my mind
Your voice blew softly in my ears
And filled with tears my dizzy eyes
Your memory wafts through my soul
Between my worn heart’s holes and rips
Soaked in the incense of your sighs
As your name slips between my lips
Your smile flashed in my dark life
And melted my soul’s barren waste
Into an ocean of glass lights
Waiting, thirsty, for your face
60

Every breath I take
I swim in your perfume
Every breath I make
I say that I love you
Every breath I take
You play me like a flute
Every breath I make
I sing love back to you
Every breath I take
I take my life anew
Every breath I make
I give it back to you
Every breath I take
You make into a flame
Consuming all my selfish pain
In my Love for you
61

Lovers have no identity
All they really have is love
And love’s a fatal enemy
To all but its own endless sea
Let our identities be like
Love’s binary in speech and thought
When added up, we become one
When multiplied, reduced to naught
And love’s a hungry equals sign
With fires smoldering on both sides
Consuming us all equally
Into its flames’ identity
I‘m neither Muslim nor Christian
Not Buddhist or Hindu or Jew
I don't want to be anything
because all I want is you
62

I've been cursed with two sorrows
one is bitter, one is sweet
My soul ploughed by two furrows,
both are narrow, one is deep
One is just my pride's migraine
from my head beneath your feet
One's my feverish longing
hot blood missing your heartbeat
I've been blessed with two sorrows
one is bitter, one is sweet
Both are yours and both of them
begin and end where we meet
63

I can’t live without your words
But I’d gladly die with them
Life’s become a winter desert,
Sorrow even death can’t end
Without your words in my mouth
Wine and kisses turn to sand
Food’s no more than dust when I
Need the warmth of your right hand
I can’t live without your love
I’m holding to it for dear life
It scalds my soul, that burning brand
That flame that gives its life to light
64

At last the sun rose like your face
From dark nights, long as your black hair
Your mouth’s a rose garden beneath
The twin oases of your stare
No one has ever yet escaped
From your cheeks’ bright rolling dunes
We perish in its smiling lines
Our rising souls form your perfume
I whispered your name to the wind
And the skies began to cry
Someone described you to the moon
And his shining eye went blind
I carved your name into my heart
And hung your image in my eyes
So my sight can’t ever grow dark
So long as your heart’s set on mine
65

My book has no ink or pages
Just the water and the waves of
My soul flowing through its stages
Ocean clouds from mountain glaciers
A quiet stream in silent snow
And written on its rippling skin
is all that could be seen or known
the heavens carved in reflection
Leaves are falling, sprouts are growing
Water rising, fire glowing
Hills are melting, winds are blowing
All in love, in all, love flowing
The air is heavy with the moisture
Of your breath behind the clouds
The oceans dance to this soft music
Last night’s echoed lovers’ vows
67

The fall came, and trees fell in love
The earth cried, kissing sky’s pink clouds
The air became a singing wine
These verses, stitches in my shroud
A glacier gazed into its pool
In teary-eyed reflection
Your bright eyes pierced my heart’s dark depths
And wept in Love’s sweet union
On summer nights moist with your breath
You seem to swim in my heart’s depths
On winter days, you seem so far
But in these two, I’ve found you are
The fire in my sighing breast
My life, my peace, my joy, my rest
Light of my eyes, song in my chest
Your love for me is my love’s best
68

The ancients were right about vision
I used to think that I could see
Until your love consumed my heart
And burning light filled my blind eyes
I saw your face for the first time
Special Relativity
Light has never lived in time
It sees all in eternity
The minutes’ hands have never split
It from itself or anything
But all at once, as one, always
So let it be with you and me
69

My tree has no creed but grows
With green leaves towards the sky’s yellow
In silence teaching all she knows
Put down roots, reach for heaven’s glow
I pity the poor fallen trunks
Whom fate’s delivered to our hands
Deprived of earth and starved of sun
And blind to what they understand
Slain, whitewashed, and bound in racks
Sliced up and tattooed with facts
That’s why I press leaves in their pages
Hoping it will bring them back
But my tree stands and dances slow
And whispers when the wind is blown
A thousand quiet prayers are thrown
From her roots’ home to starry thrones
Shading all who walk below
Indifferent to their kicks and blows
Yes, this is how I want to be
Like my tree, loving carelessly
70

Guitar
Six bars cage my lonely heart
And rattle with its sad love moans
Six stars cluster round my eye
And dance, shimmering on silver thrones
Six dark girls, three bronze, three thin
Sing sighing for their distant homes
Six hairs heavy with love’s breath
Braid flames into my wooden bones
Six rivers run over my mouth
And ripple with its quiet groans
Six threads from your skirt’s wide hem
Have hooked my ear and won’t let go
Six barbed lines make a net to catch
My spirit in its shadowed grove
Six bolts of lightning flash across
My mouth, smiling as thunder rolls
My body pierced by music from
The six strings of this compound bow
These six veins wrap around my heart
And bleeding song from five swords’ strokes
Form six paths for your love to flow
Through my heartsick and stricken soul
And weave love’s sweet, sad melodies
Between your fingers’ strikes and blows
71

Hints of Heaven
All the sweetness in this world
Flows from the dark sap of love’s pain
Sugar is the boiled blood
From wounded veins of sugarcane
From the belly of a whale
Like Jonah, amber’s beauty came
Break a love-drunk musk deers’ heart
To flood the air with scented seas
Frankincense is bled from
Burning branches of the desert trees
Petals plucked at dawn are cooked
On fires of love's Alchemy
When the aloeswood is wasted
By the blight of love’s disease
And set alight by longing’s flame
Angels drop onto their knees
The varied hells of love’s despair
Give rise to heaven’s fragrant hints
My life’s pain scents your veils and hair
On my burning soul’s incense
72

Clouds race, the moon stays
Clouds stay, the moon moves
And if you go walk,
The moon walks with you
Who’s moving through this dizzy night?
Is it the clouds, the moon, or you?
The ripples run across the stream
The stream’s running between the shores
The waves rolling, the stream is still
The shores flowing, the stream is still
The water moves, the shores are still
Spinning round my boat’s turned till
73

Your wine in my cup
My sweet in your mouth
The sun in the east
and the moon in the south
The ocean’s bright surface
The night sky’s dark depths
The light of my eyes
and the curve of your neck
Palm Wine
The priests sit in the tall palms’ shade
This tree whose leaves scatter the rays
Of the bright sun who pricked his eyes
And made him leap and climb the skies
Their meeting in the heaven’s deep
Turned his blood milk-white and sweet
And now the lovers of the sun
Drink moonlight wine around his feet
74

Dive in love’s depths to gather pearls
And seek the company of drowned
Those pearl-eyed ones who walk across
the ocean floor without a sound
Forget the world above, it all
Returns here to the world below
Ships and cities, kings and gold
All sink back to love’s watery home
Tears sweeten the vast ocean
Flames cast shadows in the sun
My longing's lost within your love
Alas, when will our loves be one?
75

The first time that I looked at you
I saw the whole world in your eyes
And when I tried to turn away
Like sunrise, your face filled the sky
Then looking back, I saw all new
Each thing transformed, sprinkled with dew
All sparkling droplets, myself too
All hiding and reflecting you
76

I want a mind hungry for truth
and looking for itself
A headstrong heart that’s full of love
And empty of all else
Only through love’s ecstasy
Will you reach objectivity
To stand outside yourself, above
That’s the position of true love
Theology’s pornography
Philosophy’s fan fiction
I don’t want to talk, I want
Your lips, not their description
78

No one escapes from life’s thornbush
Without some scrapes blooming with blood
None stumble into love’s desert
Without at last, tasting the flood
All that swim in sky’s pure blue
Will soon embrace the earth’s dark mud
If you’re drawn to beauty’s light
Be sure that she’ll burn you black
Love’s eyes will leave cuts on your face
Or scars across your broken back
79

Collapse the heavens like a tent
Roll up the earth’s carpet of days
These sands hold no interest
For the people of the Way
How long will your sorrow
Camp in the ruins of yesterday?
The winds of tomorrow’ll
Carry all of it away
Pack up your soul and tie her
To the moment’s galloping
You’ll fly behind the stars
On the draft of angels’ wings
Don’t blink ‘cause I’m afraid
That I might fade into the black
Don't let go of my heavy heart
My feet can't bring her back
80

Headwinds
Life has winds that blow and swirl
Hard and soft, hot, swift, and cold
Some bring rain and others snow
Bearing blooms or leaves of gold
Soft breath at your back is fine
For walking down a country road
But if you’d like to fly, my friend
Prepare to bear a heavy load
When the harsh wind swiftly comes and
Whips your face and tears your eyes
Those with wings like kites can run and
Leave the ground, climbing the sky
81

There are people who will burn you
Just because they’re cold
And there are some who’ll try to bury you
Because they’re growing old
And some will try to blind you
Because they don’t like the view
They’ll try to take your ears off
When they can’t hear what you do
Don’t pay them any mind my friend
You’ve seen things they could never know
Birds don’t debate with earthworms
Flames don’t fear their own shadows
82

Climb the secret steps of stars
If you’re not able, use a cane
Find mirrors to read your map of scars
If you don’t see sun, look for rain
Don’t mind the devils crouching in
The shadows of heaven’s stairwell
You fear the dark, and it fears you
Because the fear of light is hell
There’s a hidden force in light
That makes it spread and sets it free
There’s a light hidden in hearts
That binds them all and lets them see
The way to outwit gravity:
Love’s hard, but it makes all easy
83

When God loosed Gog and Magog
To swarm all over the earth
They flattened all with Babel's tower
Rolled sideways on its girth
Languages became accents
Calligraphy reduced to fonts
Epics shrunk to idioms
And visions to figures of thought
The Barbarians are through the gates
And on our tongues and in our minds
The animals rule palaces
While civilized men sleep outside
Crushed shards of civilizations
Beasts collect for their homes
Echoes of revelation
Shredded to stuff pillows
Men either tame or turn to beasts
Minds broken and hearts overthrown
What's all I've learned and forgotten
Compared to what I could have known?
…
84

…
I wish I were a cow eating grass
I wish I were a bird in a tree
I wish that all that's come to pass
Had never come to be
The world has turned and turned until
It's turned all upside down
All dizzy, lost, and spinning
Wandering, waiting to be found
85

Gypsy Camp
Come and join our camp tonight
Leave the dark forest behind
Follow violin’s voices
Come and taste what real joy is
We dance with the shadows
Without a fear or care
‘Cause we remember what it’s like
To live beneath the sun’s bright light
We’ve got a bit of that bright sphere
In our music’s warm circle here
Love’s the fire at our center
Spinning all our songs around her
The world’s so different in the day
And when it comes, we’ll move away
But for tonight, we drink the stars
And wait in joy, the dawn’s not far
86

I pray one day my child
That you’ll know what it’s like
To come home to a dark green peace
In rays of jasmine moonlight
With the sounds of the beach
In the shade of the trees
With a kiss on your lips
And a hug ‘round your knees
With a heart full of love
And a hand full of sweets
With the sky for your bed
And the earth at your feet
87

And so I’ll hide
Inside my poems
To kiss your lips
As you read them
“If not for you I would not know love
If not for love I would not know you”
but shhhh now, I’m busy falling in love with you
O Majestic, my Beautiful
88

Index of First Lines
All the sweetness in this world 72
And in melodious accents I 50
And so I’ll hide 83
At last, a cure for all my pains 23
At last the sun rose like your face 65
Be careful when you read this love 9
Climb the secret steps of stars 83
Clouds race, the moon stays 73
Collapse the heavens like a tent 80
Come and join our camp tonight 86
Crack the thin white china of 37
Dip your finger in my eyes’ ink 32
Dive in love’s depths to gather pearls 75
Don’t blink ‘cause I’m afraid 80
Dust dancing in light 24
Every breath I take 61
Everything has its reason 52
Every mistake I’ve cut my soul on 45
Gather the shards of my soul scattered 54
Hung between a sun of hope 36
I can’t live without your words 64
I have no faith except for this: 8
I have no faith in my faith 44
I live to die as a star 47

I pray one day my child 87
I reached out to grab your skirt 42
I saw that look in your eye last night 40
I strike sounds against light 19
I used to think that I could see 69
I want a mind hungry for truth 78
I want to give my soul to you 24
I was a worthless patch of mud 33
I write for the mute 18
I write to water your love’s tree 2
I'd be lying if I said 39
I’m so in love with you 28
I’ll keep kissing your picture 42
I’ll keep beating my heart’s drum 29
It’s what’s not there that gives what is 20
I've been cursed with two sorrows 63
I’ve drunk from your lips so long 11
I’ve stitched a net of words with love 12
I’ve written out this talisman 15
Leaves are falling, sprouts are growing 67
Life has winds that blow and swirl 81
Light has never lived in time 69
Love is a hole in the pocket of your soul 31
Love is not love that loves itself 26
Lovers have no identity 62
My book has no ink or pages 67
My heart’s a riddle left unsolved 56
My life is just a series of 58
My soul is a string 30
My soul’s been tattooed with your name 21
My tree has no creed but grows 70
My two lips are dark and stained 43

My words come from and back to you 1
No one escapes from life’s thornbush 79
On summer nights moist with your breath 68
Only through love’s ecstasy 78
Permit me to be candid dear 51
Pick the stars like silver berries 21
Poetry is just postcards 12
Six bars cage my lonely heart 71
Stars glisten in my heart’s deep well 59
Tears sweeten the vast ocean 75
That light inside your eyes’ black night 56
The darkness of light from the brilliance of shade 6
The dawn wind came and told my nose 21
The echo of that sigh born from 13
The fall came, and trees fell in love 68
The first time that I looked at you 76
The moon fell in the desert’s lap 4
The priests sit in the tall palm’s shade 74
The quiet gasp before the song 5
The whole world’s but a single verse 14
The world is warped and twisted in 58
Theology’s pornography 78
There are people who will burn you 82
There's a beauty in the dark 35
There’s a cave in my heart’s depths 35
There’s a hole inside my heart 57
There’s a little place I know 34
They told me that I could have been 48
This life’s too hard to live sober 27

This light you cast into my eyes 14
Waves’ foam kissing the rocky beach 17
We’re all just moving hieroglyphs 16
We’re like the two sides of a mirror 54
What are these dry and hollow words 10
When God loosed Gog and Magog 84
When my hand slipped into yours 24
When your soul’s sharpened to a point 32
Words flee from your beauty 11
You froze my heart with your cold glance 56
You hold a vineyard in your hand 9
You hide behind your self-portraits 55
You showed us your face once last night 25
Your eyes found mine inside the crowd 46
Your face floating in my eyes 55
Your name 29
Your scent crept up in my nose 60
Your smile flashed in my dark life 60
Your wine in my cup 74
Your words tear me to pieces 38