Dk Poetry Slam/Open Mic!

Good evening. Welcome to Dk Poetry Slam/Open Mic. Thank you for coming! Pick out a table or sit on the floor, come up to the mic & speak your piece. Don't be shy. Last week I discovered, via KALW, a cd of poems put to music ti tled 'strange conversation', by kris delmhorst. I just got it last nite & it really rocks!

Transcendent in every sense, Strange Conversation bridges literary periods, forms, and musical genres to create an original album truly greater than the sum of its parts, a joyful collection of songs that revels in the interplay of language and melody. The poems - some many centuries old - feel immediate and accessible because they speak to what it is to be alive and human, questions addressed through poetry and song from time immemorial.

As always, feel free to post poems, play scenes and short short stories. Your own work or the works of others

I will open with Rumi which I found at this Gurdjief site. A veritable Rumi PSlam! I don't know who gave it the title. It's not the same Rumi poem played on the cd. I chose it because it seems so modern, as if it were written today!

THE PHRASING MUST CHANGE by Jalal Al-Din Rumi Learn about your inner self from those who know such things, but don't repeat verbatim what they say. Zuleikha let everything be the name of Joseph, from celery seed to aloes wood.  She loved him so much she concealed his name in many different phrases, the inner meanings known only to her.  When she said, The wax is softening near the fire, she meant, My love is wanting me. Or if she said, Look, the moon is up or The willow has new leaves or The branches are trembling or The coriander seeds have caught fire or The roses are opening or The king is in a good mood today or Isn't that lucky? or The furniture needs dusting or The water carrier is here or It's almost daylight or These vegetables are perfect or The bread needs more salt or The clouds seem to be moving against the wind or My head hurts or My headache's better, anything she praises, it's Joseph's touch she means, any complaint, it's his being away. When she's hungry, it's for him.  Thirsty, his name is a sherbet. Cold, he's a fur.  This is what the Friend can do when one is in such love.  Sensual people use the holy names often, but they don't work for them. The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God, Zuleikha felt in the name of Joseph. When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that is to breathe the name Hu, empty of self and filled with love.  As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it. The saffron spice of connecting, laughter. The onion smell of separation, crying. Others have many things and people they love. This is not the way of Friend and friend.