Rumi - Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system.
I am not from the East...or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,  am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any  origin story. 
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.
There is a way between voice and presence where information flows
In disciplined silence it opens. 
With wandering talk it closes.

A Part Of You, A Part Of Me

Relationships do touch us deeply; adding to our personality, introducing new habits, teaching us what matters most, etc... We would never be the same afterwords, this poem "A Part Of You, A Part Of Me" say it all.



Every moment that we are together,
I am learning something,
and that knowledge becomes a permanent part of me.

Though my feelings will be different a year from now,
or ten years from now, part of the difference is you.

Because of you, I am a different person,
and the person I will grow to become
will have gotten there partly because of you.

If you were not in my life right now,
I could not be who I am right now,
nor would I be growing in exactly the same way.

I don't worry about our future together,
sine we have already touched each other
and affected each other's lives on so many levels
that we can never be totally removed from one another.

A part of me will always be with you,
and a part of you will always be with me.
That much is certain, no matter what else happens.


p.s. I am not sure if Larry S. Chengges has written this poem!

We Have On This Earth What Makes Life Worth Living

We have on this earth what makes life worth living
April’s hesitation,
the aroma of bread at dawn,
a woman’s point of view about men,
the works of Aeschylus,
the beginning of love,
grass on a stone,
mothers living on a flute’s sigh and
the invaders’ fear of memories

We have on this earth what makes life worth living:
the final days of September,
a woman keeping her apricots ripe after forty,
the hour of sunlight in prison,
a cloud reflecting a swarm of creatures,
the peoples’ applause for those who face death with a smile,
a tyrant’s fear of songs.

We have on this earth what makes life worth living: on this earth,
the Lady of Earth,
mother of all beginnings and ends.
She was called Palestine.
Her name later became Palestine.
My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life.

"If" by Kipling, 1895

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Verse – A Poem by Nizar Qabbani

Friends
The old word is dead.
The old books are dead.
Our speech with holes like worn-out shoes is dead.
Dead is the mind that led to defeat.

Our poetry has gone sour.
Women’s hair, nights, curtains and sofas
Have gone sour.
Everything has gone sour.

My grieved country,
In a flash
You changed me from a poet who wrote love poems
To a poet who writes with a knife

What we feel is beyond words:
We should be ashamed of our poems.

Stirred by Oriental bombast,
By boastful swaggering that never killed a fly,
By the fiddle and the drum,
We went to war,
And lost.

Our shouting is louder than our actions,
Our swords are taller than us,
This is our tragedy.

In short
We wear the cape of civilisation
But our souls live in the stone age

You don't win a war
With a reed and a flute.

Our impatience
Cost us fifty thousand new tents.

Don't curse heaven
If it abandons you,
Don't curse circumstances,
God gives victory to whom He wishes
God is not a blacksmith to beat swords.

It’s painful to listen to the news in the morning
It’s painful to listen to the barking of dogs.

Our enemies did not cross our borders
They crept through our weaknesses like ants.

Five thousand years
Growing beards
In our caves.
Our currency is unknown,
Our eyes are a haven for flies.
Friends,
Smash the doors,
Wash your brains,
Wash your clothes.
Friends,
Read a book,
Write a book,
Grow words, pomegranates and grapes,
Sail to the country of fog and snow.
Nobody knows you exist in caves.
People take you for a breed of mongrels.

We are a thick-skinned people
With empty souls.
We spend our days practicing witchcraft,
Playing chess and sleeping.
Are we the ‘Nation by which God blessed mankind’?

Our desert oil could have become
Daggers of flame and fire.
We’re a disgrace to our noble ancestors:
We let our oil flow through the toes of whores.

We run wildly through the streets
Dragging people with ropes,
Smashing windows and locks.
We praise like frogs,
Turn midgets into heroes,
And heroes into scum:
We never stop and think.
In mosques
We crouch idly,
Write poems,
Proverbs,
Beg God for victory
Over our enemy

If i knew I’d come to no harm,
And could see the Sultan,
This is what i would say:
‘Sultan,
Your wild dogs have torn my clothes
Your spies hound me
Their eyes hound me
Their noses hound me
Their feet hound me
They hound me like Fate
Interrogate my wife
And take down the name of my friends.
Sultan,
When I came close to your walls
and talked about my pains,
Your soldiers beat me with their boots,
Forced me to eat my shoes.
Sultan,
You lost two wars,
Sultan,
Half of our people are without tongues,
What’s the use of a poeple without tongues?
Half of our people
Are trapped like ants and rats
Between walls.’
If i knew I’d come to no harm
I’d tell him:
‘You lost two wars
You lost touch with children.’

If we hadn’t buried our unity
If we hadn’t ripped its young body with bayonets
If it had stayed in our eyes
The dogs wouldn’t have savaged our flesh.

We do not want an angry generation
To plough the sky
To blow up history
To blow up our thoughts.
We want a new generation
That does not forgive mistakes
That does not bend.
We want a generation of giants.

Arab children,
Corn ears of the future,
You will break our chains,
Kill the opium in our heads,
Kill the illusions.
Arab children,
Don’t read about our suffocated generation,
We are a hopeless case.
We are as worthless as a water-melon rind.
Don't read about us,
Don't ape us,
Don't accept us,
Don't accept our ideas,
We are a nation of crooks and jugglers.
Arab children,
Spring rain,
Corn ears of the future,
You are the generation
That will overcome defeat.

Follow Your Destiny Wherever It Leads You

I bought myself a gift; a Blue Mountain Arts poster“Follow Your Destiny Wherever It Leads You”, and since then it is hanged where I can read it. I find it a truthful one and something I can relate to in my own life. Life brought me equal amount of surprises and disappointments that altered my path and directions in life. In both ways I had to be decisive to do something about my plans and choices, and never just wait for them to fall right in front of me. For me it is claiming my life, and be in charge of it.
I guess by being decisive I am believing in my own capabilities, skills, values and ration. I wish never to let life steer me but I to lead my life despite how harsh or kind are the circumstances.
Here are the words of the poster:

There comes a time in your life when you realize that if you stand still,
You will remain at this point forever.
You realize that if you fall and stay down, life will pass you by.
Life's circumstances are not always what you might wish them to be.
The pattern of life does not necessarily go as you plan.
Beyond any understanding, you may at times be led
in different directions that you never imagined, dreamed, or designed.
Yet if you had never put any effort into choosing a path,
or tried to carry out your dream,
then perhaps you would have no direction at all.Rather than wondering about or questioning the direction your life has taken,
accept the fact that there is a path before you now.
Shake off the ‘whys’ and ‘what ifs,’ and rid yourself of confusion.
Whatever was — is in the past.
Whatever is — is what's important.
The past is a brief reflection.
The future is yet to be realized.
Today is here.
Walk your path one step at a time — with courage, faith, and determination.
Keep your head up and cast your dream to the stars.
Soon your steps will become firm, and your footing will be solid again.
A path that you never imagined will become the most comfortable direction
you could have ever hoped to follow.
Keep your belief in yourself and walk into your new journey.
You will find it magnificent, spectacular, and beyond your wildest imaginings.

Vicki Silvers