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Funny Poem of the Week by FunnyPoets.com
How to Make Tin Cookie Cutters
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 |  | eHow Of The Day How to Make Tin Cookie Cuttersby Palmer Owyoung Baking cookies in different shapes can be a fun way to release your creative juices. If you would to be even more creative you can make your own custom cookie cutters. All you need are a few tools that you might already have around the house and you can make your cookie cutters into any shape that you can possibly imagine.…Keep reading More Like This | Advertisement Featured Member Articles You Should Follow Us!
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[News] PIW 15 February 2011
The second February 2011 issue of Poetry International Web is a rich offering of writing from the southern hemisphere, with original poems in Indonesian, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and English.
The PIW Indonesia domain introduces Afrizal Malna and Joko Pinurbo, both of whom are known for the incorporation of quotidian images and objects from Indonesian life into their poetry. We've also published the work of three South African poets: Gcina Mhlophe, who writes rousing invocations in Zulu, Xhosa and English; Wilma Stockenström, whose poetry has graced the Afrikaans literary world for the last four decades; and Stephen Watson, an English-language poet writing lyrical interrogations of landscape and memory.
Read the full editorial, poems and translations in the current issue of PIW at www.poetryinternationalweb.
Poem of the Week
Afrizal Malna (Indonesia)
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[Poetry Chaikhana] Seyh Galib - Love is a lamp of God, I am its moth;
Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --
 | Love is a lamp of God, I am its moth; By Seyh Galib English version by Bernard Lewis
Love is a lamp of God, I am its moth;
 / Photo by Jessica.Tam / |
| ============ Thought for the Day: Who am I excluding from my heart? ============ | Here's your Daily Music selection --  C Lanzbom Dreams |
Hi Omss -
This poem, like much of Sufi poetry, uses a language of the profane to describe oneness with God as the Divine Beloved. Galib speaks of revelry and carousing, of taverns and "the daughter of the vine."
It is partly because of these sorts of metaphors that uptight Victorian Europe chose to view the Muslim world as one of licentiousness and excess -- quite the opposite of the modern Western prejudice that imagines all Muslims to be religious extremists. Both perspectives represent a profound misunderstanding of the deep wisdom being expressed through this sort of language.
Wine, as I have said elsewhere, is a common metaphor for the subtle and "intoxicating" drink of bliss. For many mystics it is an actual sensory experience that is sweet on the palate and warms the heart. The resulting flood of energy in the body can be so intense that it often causes trembling or even jerking body movements, occasionally unconsciousness, suggesting drunkenness to a spectator.
the sun of wisdom rises in the tavern jar.
But it is in the wine glass, the "tavern jar," that the "sun of wisdom rises." By immersing oneself in that ecstasy, false concepts are washed away and true knowing emerges.
This image of a cup or glass containing the sun has even more meaning for Sufis -- it is an evocation of the Muslim symbol of the star and crescent. Picture in your mind the rim of a glass catching the light -- that is the crescent -- and within it is held the star or sun. One way Sufis understand this symbol is that the star is the dawning light of enlightenment, and the crescent is the rim of the glass of bliss-bestowing wine. (The crescent is also the rim of the sky and the open boundaries of the heart... giving us enlightenment within the individual soul and within the world of being.)
He drinks the wine mingled with poison of the glance of those eyes;
I could be tipsy from the languor of those blue eyes.
As in many sacred traditions, the Sufis often describe the interaction between the ego-self and the Divine as a game of love. Thus, Galib writes of eyes that make the "reveler" tipsy. A glance from those eyes causes him to drink "wine mingled with poison." Why poison? The wine of divine union awakens sweet ecstasy, but because such a divine glance leads to the death of the ego, that sweetness is also likened to poison. When we finally notice the Beloved's glance -- poof! -- suddenly only the Beloved remains!
Galib, enter the secluded palace of pleasure and see its secret,
the wise way of the daughter of the vine is something else.
This is what it means to truly enter the "secluded palace of pleasure." But are we ready to see its secret?
==
Seyh Galib, also known as Galib Dede, was born in Istanbul. His father was a government official with some connection to the Mevlevi Sufi order, the order of "whirling dervishes" founded by Rumi.
Galib attempted to combine a government career with the interior life of a Sufi, but he eventually turned his focus wholeheartedly to the spiritual life, becoming the sheikh of the Mevlevi order in the Galata district of Istanbul.
By this time he was already famous for his poetry, known even to Sultan Selim III, who was a patron of poets. Galib composed a divan (collection) of his poetry and a poetic allegory called "Beauty and Love." He is considered to be the last of the great classical Ottoman poets.
Have a beautiful day!
Ivan
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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.
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