Not all bruises linger on the skin..

sinking deeper in..

Nagging each crevice of the mind..

there is no rewind.

BLASPHEMY

My Life Was The Size of My Life

My life was the size of my life. Its rooms were room-sized, its soul was the size of a soul. In its background, mitochondria hummed, above it sun, clouds, snow, the transit of stars and planets. It rode elevators, bullet trains, various airplanes, a donkey. It wore socks, shirts, its own ears and nose. It ate, it slept, it opened and closed its hands, its windows. Others, I know, had lives larger. Others, I know, had lives shorter. The depth of lives, too, is different. There were times my life and I made jokes together. There were times we made bread. Once, I grew moody and distant. I told my life I would like some time, I would like to try seeing others. In a week, my empty suitcase and I returned. I was hungry, then, and my life, my life, too, was hungry, we could not keep our hands off       our clothes on    our tongues from

—2012

Why should we two ever want to part?

Just as the leaf of the water rhubarb lives floating on the water, We live as the Great one and the litle one.

As the owl opens his eyes all night to the moon, we live as The Great one and the little one.

This love between us goes back to the first humans, it cannot be annihilated.

Here is Kabirs idea: as the River gives itself to the ocean, what is inside me moves inside you.

To celebrate the 650th anniversary of this wonderful medieval mystic’s visions (in 2023), please submit your poems about Mother Julian of Norwich to editor Sarah, at [email protected] before the deadline of February 1st, 2023. Please send up to three poems as a single Word doc or pasted into the body of the email, subject head ‘Julian Poems’. Previously published poems and simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please include a brief, 3rd person biographical note with your submission.

Anthology contributors will receive a free PDF of the anthology and may purchase the print book at cost price. I hope to respond to submissions by 1st May 2023, and publish the anthology soon afterwards, with an online launch to follow.

-editor Sarah Law

You beckon me home to You - Layla Ali Sultan

– Mechthild of Magdeburg, trans. Jane Hirschfield

Do not trust in some mystery planned by "them" Whom we have watched orchestrate their own downfall By foolish machinations recorded in the annals Their shortsightedness hymned by broken pillars, sine cere And shattered marble likenesses That were never likenesses at all But rather what was left When they became like the milk on a cereal box Better looking than the genuine article Having traded realness for beauty Became toxic And were moved out of reach for safety’s sake Because no one should eat vinyl acetate Damn shame because there are still sugar oats in it

Do not trust the peddlers of expensive cures When they wail about the dangers of diseases You’ve never heard of before Trust only in the Ugly Gods Who struggle past your scorn to love you Wearing flaws on their sleeves to show you You can be both imperfect and holy

You can be imperfect and holy.

Union with the Truth, Close to Truth's Beauty  A taste of Unity, Through remembrance of the Lord.

Remembrance of the Lord Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak Al-Jerrah

“

LoVe

is

what

we

all

want

in

life

and what

we look

for first. It's

OUR

passion

for living

which

forming the

sea in which our souls swim. “

Penetrate my hidden corridors if you dare! Listen to the whispers and consider this claim: ‘tis better to face doubt than pray for salvation Or fear a demiurge’s threats of damnation Take one bold step and jump through your dogmatic frame Free yourself from the twin bonds of hope and despair.

“The Heretic’s Book” from  A Book to Free the Soul ©

On a night when it all seemed pointless,

I danced all by myself.

It reminded me that we're never truly alone,

For here within, lies magic.

FLY!

Too Many Names

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays and the week with the whole year. Time cannot be cut with your weary scissors, and all the names of the day are washed out by the waters of night. No one can claim the name of Pedro, nobody is Rosa or Maria, all of us are dust or sand, all of us are rain under rain. They have spoken to me of Venezuelas, of Chiles and of Paraguays; I have no idea what they are saying. I know only the skin of the earth and I know it is without a name. When I lived amongst the roots they pleased me more than flowers did, and when I spoke to a stone it rang like a bell. It is so long, the spring which goes on all winter. Time lost its shoes. A year is four centuries. When I sleep every night, what am I called or not called? And when I wake, who am I if I was not while I slept? This means to say that scarcely have we landed into life than we come as if new-born; let us not fill our mouths with so many faltering names, with so many sad formallities, with so many pompous letters, with so much of yours and mine, with so much of signing of papers. I have a mind to confuse things, unite them, bring them to birth, mix them up, undress them, until the light of the world has the oneness of the ocean, a generous, vast wholeness, a crepitant fragrance.

Passion

Retract yourself from the outside, the noise, the people and the confusion.

Go inside - to your own treasure trove.

Envelope yourself in your own grace, your own flow and in what you naturally love to do.

Build on what you love to do and don't stop.

Even if it looks messy,

Even if it all topples over.

You will get better when you try again as it is with everything else.

Be so drawn to your creative passion. Get lost in it.

Make it uniquely your own.

Work at it like nothing else even matters.

-KD (mystical-poetry)