Tattooing in Qazwin (2)

LeBron James with chest tattoo of a lion;

was he wailing from tattoo pain?

Photo found here.

The ear.

Doc, let's do a lion with no ears this time.

The barber shakes his head and once more

the needle and once more, the wailing.

Where are you now?

The belly.

I like a lion without a belly.

The master lion-maker stands for a long time

with his fingers in his mouth.

Finally, he throws the needle down.

No one has ever asked me to do such a thing.

To create a lion without a tail or a head or a stomach.

God himself could not do it.

Brother, stand the pain. Escape the poison

of your impulses. The sky will bow to your beauty

if you do. Learn to light the candle. Rise

with the sun. That way a thorn expands to a rose.

A particular glows with the universal.

What is it to praise? Make yourself particles.

What is it to know something of God?

Burn inside that presence. Burn up.

Tattooing in Qazwin (1)

In Qazwin they have a custom of tattooing themselves

for good luck, with a blue ink,

on the back of the hand, the shoulder, whatever.

A certain man there goes to his barber

and asks to be given a powerful, heroic blue lion

on his shoulder blade.

And do it with flair. I have Leo Ascending.

I want plenty of blue.

But as soon as the needle starts pricking,

he howls, What are you doing?

The lion.

Which part did you start with?

I began with the tail.

Leave out the tail. That lion's rump

is in a bad place for me. It cuts off my wind.

The barber continues and immediately

the man yells out, Ooooooooooooo, which part now?

What is Love? Gratitude

Don't unstring your bow.

I am your four-feathered arrow

that has not been used yet.

I am a strong knifeblade word,

not some if or maybe, dissolving in air.

I am sunlight slicing the dark.

Who made this night?

A forge deep in the earth-mud.

What is the body?

Endurance.

What is love?

Gratitude.

What is hidden in our chests?

Laughter.

What else?

Compassion.

Don't ask what love can make or do.

Look at the colors of the world.

The riverwater moving in all rivers at once.

A Mouse and a Frog (2)

Illustration for an Aesop's fable found here

But one day the mouse complains, There are times

when I want sohbet, and you're out in the water,

jumping around where you can't hear me.

We meet at this appointed time,

but the text says, Lovers pray constantly.

Once a day, once a week, five times an hour,

is not enough. Fish like we are

need the ocean around us.

Do camel bells say, Let's meet back here Thursday night?

Ridiculous. They jingle

together continuously,

talking while the camel walks.

Do you pay regular visits to yourself?

Don't argue or answer rationally.

Let us die,

   and dying, reply.

*This is the night Rumi died, in 1273.

A Mouse and a Frog (1)

Photo of frog rescuing a mouse found here; 

it was shot in the flood waters of a 2006 Indian moonsoon

A mouse and a frog meet every morning on the riverbank.

They sit in a nook of the ground and talk.

Each morning, the second they see each other,

they open easily, telling stories and dreams and secrets,

empty of any fear or suspicious holding-back.

To watch and listen to those two

is to understand how, as it is written,

sometimes when two beings come together,

Christ becomes visible.

The mouse starts laughing out a story he hasn't thought of

in five years, and the telling might take five years.

There is no blocking the speechflow-river-running-

all-carrying momentum that true intimacy is.

Bitterness doesn't have a chance with those two.

The God-messenger Khidr touches a roasted fish.

It leaps off the grill back into the water.

Friend sits by Friend, and the tablets appear.

They read the mysteries off each other's foreheads.

Wean Yourself

Little by little, wean yourself.

This is the gist of what I have to say.

From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in blood,

move to an infant drinking milk,

to a child on solid food,

to a searcher after wisdom,

to a hunter of more invisible game.

Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.

You might say, The world outside is vast and intricate.

There are wheatfields and mountain passes

and orchards in bloom.

At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight

the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding.

You ask the embryo why he or she stays cooped up

in the dark with its eyes closed.

Listen to the answer.

There is no "other world."

I only know what I have experienced.

You must be hallucinating.

The Nightwatchman (2)

Night Shadows, by Edward Hopper

 

The nightwatchman knows the way

from body to soul, how soul moves

in stomach bile, in blood and semen, in saliva.

Soul works inside those fluids

to keep the body fresh and full of energy.

So the stars and the planets and this world

are moving to bring grace here

through the cold night-clarity.

Events like battle arrows crisscross

from every direction. There is only one archer.

The skill of the sheepdog comes from the shepherd.

A city has a collective intelligence,

and each person there has a unique knowing.

Sometimes random bits pretend

to be a caravan, but it was a good messenger

who brought us the order out on the road

to Come back, Come back.