Hafiz – Tired of Speaking Sweetly

Apparently the west is fascinated by Sufi poets.  I have to admit that if I hear one more speaker quote or reference Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, (always referenced in English as “Rumi” because that’s the word for “The Roman” which described where he lived) I may actually have to charge to the bathroom and vomit.  I mean Jesus fricking Christ people…he is a good poet, sure, but the most quoted poet in the English Language.  I’m convinced it’s because he sounds mystical and foreign.  Overuse can kill anything.
 
Anyway I was at the Master/slave Conference over the Holiday Weekend, and somebody quoted Hafiz instead.  This alone excited me enough I felt like I ought to go into the LVR and toss off.
 
Anyway, the context isn’t particularly important, but I liked the translation enough to reproduce it here:
 
 
Tired of Speaking Sweetly
 
Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.
 
If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.
 
Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth
 
That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
 
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.
 
God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.
 
The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
 
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.
 
But when we hear
He is in such a “playful drunken mood”
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.
 
 – Hafiz 
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  1. Free Piano 26 June, 2017 at 11:06 am |

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