Best Dervishes Poems
"Syzygy"
Behind the wet dunes
fringed with seagrass
a blood crescent
kisses the forehead
of dreamer traversed
twin aeon syzygy
barefeet the velvet
sophia imprints
softly speak
like words seen
dancing across
the place between
heaven and earth
mapping deviations
non-standard
calibrating alignment
played forward through
unchartered jaded
emerald forests
where the satin skin
becomes sparkling
crystalline it shatters
like a shell disgarded, then
the body of no substance
becomes transparent
enveloped in rapturous
Devabani heralding
commands cast
from divine throats
lutes and sitars
whirling nightingales
dervishes wingspanned
accompany angelic legions
the journey melts into
deep blue mysterious oceans
easily walked, hypnotic the
transparent beckoning,
this is the way come,
come, come closer
closer, come forward,
on higher Elysian steppes
the bride smiles
an unspoken secret
and turns
the eyes are
twin windows
like doorways
opening
swallowing
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
Your thought-balloons are filled with wild and magical freedom ~
until madness seizes your think tank
trapping your ceaselessly chirping ideas
within the teeth of its snapped steel-jaws
refusing to relinquish you; lest you chew up and spit out your mind-racing brain
ire over this cognitive quagmire is quite understandable ~
like the murmuration of startled starlings
amassing in angst and taking wing
your thoughts, your second thoughts and afterthoughts
gather in pulsating dark masses
swirling into flight and shifting directions
turbulently twisting into tornadic spins
unable or unwilling to unravel and unwind
as they hurl themselves
in a pessimistic panic
through the maze of gray matter minefields
not wanting to explode their legs-to-stand-on should they alight...
...and despite butterfly nets vying to capture them
they are whirling dervishes twirling out of control --
holding your damnation in a state of suspended animation
Susan Ashley
March 24, 2018
Black folks got rhythm
full movements
undeterred, and
flexible as four winds.
How low can we go?
with limbo
it's in our hands
with early rising;
planting seeds of joy,
washed in ray of hope -
we dance on sturdy grounds
with gems to unearth.
The whole world watch and wait
what instruments of weight and
measure will bring us together?
Once upon a time we reeled,
like dervishes; only we were ship wrecked!
the wave of One Hand,
we now stand like those chosen,
at the parting of the sea.
Why are we so stupid, Lord? Why do we yell and shout, rant and rave,pillage and kill? Why do we cheat and lie, ignore and disdain, leave and abandon?
We could all be so close, so loving, so kind--we all share the same things:
the fresh air, the blue sky,and oh, the rich moonlit nights....
We all have the same fears: loneliness and sickness, poverty and death....
And we all hold fast to the same dreams: friends, family, a lover, perhaps
happy children whirling like small dervishes in their own little worlds.
A bit of praise, a kind word, work that goes well--that's all we really need....
I wrote this as a poem but it is really a prayer. I spoke it aloud so many times--
even unto the thick part of the blackest night until I fell into a deep, deep sleep,
the very deepest sleep, a sleep almost like death itself....
When I awoke the next morn, the mail had come early. I opened an envelope that strangely had no stamp. It was handwritten in unreal, almost unearthly beauty. It began quite formally:
Dear Mr. ( my name ),
I have broken my own rule to write you,
but you are so very persistent!
If life were easy, you would not feel alive.
If love were easy, you would not value it.
And if I were easy, you would never seek me.
Faithfully yours,
God
Herein the empty vessels
cavort, frenzied motion capture,
compass cracked, fly blown
dervishes robbed of direction.
Mumbling lips aflutter
with poetry deranged;
dry dock for the ancients,
amnesiac retrograde.
Inconsolable and incurable,
imaginary tasks, furniture removal,
trailing human waste
they are the cause of.
Beneath a frozen clock,
metal frames and walking sticks
lean in derelict repose,
surreal, Daliesque in structure.
The intimate stink of
bowel and bladder hangs
a cloud of doomsday,
peeling humanity's very integrity.
All the while waiting,
injury and bonus time
arthritic in progress, waiting
to be touched by the hand of God.
Or Woman, Or Child, Or...
The following elucidated
conjecture actually can
(reed best) be taken with a grain
of salt, and no re ban
nah nah split 'ope ya 'ere me
cloud and lear, cuz (Oh my...
heavens to Betsy), ennui
got pulled by Evan -
Jewel Lean, who handed this long fellow
(wads worth to you)
speculation with fan
see prestidigitation legerdemain - tan
ta mount to cheap tricks
re: out of thin air
by this half
fast hue man,
Hill Billy Willy Wonka Nilly,
who blithely doth asseverate
apothegm (poem title) equally applicable
Century21 today Aswan
damn maxim initially
bespoke, when collective
primates begat enfant terrible
foo fighting predetermining anon
metastasizing debacle Yeti
bedeviling civilization
a bajillion years in the future with
Matthew Scott Harris deadpan
words worth less his way
before even an odd iota
of dire straight sultan
of swing didst merely span
spottily scattered amidst
pristine Earth, where
unchanging arboreal
beastie boys to oman,
and flock of sea gulls
continuity elapsed – Ivan
hunch, albeit un
recorded disc contented sow
sow hogtied pan
dum mo' nee ham, or
blessed historical events,
kept (stay'n) alive,
courtesy"FAKE" Trump
petting Dapper Dan,
where he knit pattern,
qua oral tradition, sans clan
destine scattered hot pockets
of sparse *****sapiens,
i.e. humanity LESS preponderant,
primary, and/or prolific,
where superstitions parlayed
(voodoo with no Fran Schwa),
and whirling dervishes fed elan,
which earliest recorded (doctored,
digitized, and demented
oh yea), not
tomb mitt to dimly mentioned
asper "time and tide
wait for no man"
purportedly by one
Saint Marher, circa:
1225 anno domini.
Our hearts have strings like guitars
Once passionately tuned
With melodious notes
Beautiful harmonies
Are conceived
These guitars
Instruments of bliss
Send soothing vibrations
To the universe around us
Totally energized
By these heavenly lyrics
The dervishes swiftly decide
To whirl around their hearts
Sanctuaries of love
leaf dervishes w
h
i
r
l
vow autumns effervescence ~
conscious elements
I went to The Jester’s Tea Party
In the tower with the winding stair
Frida Kahlo manned the door
And God and the Devil were there
The artist was stood in the shadows
Silently summoning me
To stand with him like a tiny child
At the edge of an innocent sea
He showed me the sadness of circuses
And the violent colours of night
Swept by the brush of his sorrow
Upon canvases heavy with light
He showed me the bones of roses
Strewn on a luminous land
Yama and Dali and Karma and Kali
A heart in a mannequin’s hand
He showed me a skull full of sinister dolls
The ink on a baby’s skin
The wild provocation of beauty
And the unsubtle presence of sin
He showed me unusual clichés
Arranged in original ways
Dudes in the gloom of a glorious doom
Rocking the Ancient of Days
He showed me a girl with an earring
A boy sat alone with a scream
The mischievous mosh of Breughel and Bosch
Through acrylic satirical dream
He showed me the judgement of jesters
The torments of transient lust
The whirling of dervishes whipping up wind
The imprints of pride in the dust
As he showed me his rainbow emotions
His passion, and bright neon grace
Solemn tears came tumbling down
His secret and hidden face
When I asked for the key to his magic
To his powerful mystical prayer
He turned
In silence
And pointed to
The lonely clown on the stair
‘Tis time to face the darkness
The words of the flyer had said
In Simon Griffiths’ art I found
The light of his soul instead
© Gail Foster 2016
The JESTER
The King leaves his court
to go hunting on horseback
and the fresh forest becomes
the Palace. His footmen
dance around his wishes
like whirling dervishes falling
into a trance. What visions appear
to the sightless? A jester
gestures the insanity with mocking
virtue of fools who hunt
the Golden Bear and return
with empty hands full; their
delight the reason for more folly
but no one outwardly laughs
at the King, yet behind his back
they sing of the madness,
the search for lasting things
in the forest of time, secure
in the bosom of a blind
and naked King.
With her hand, she drew perfect circles,
from balloons to bicycles, perfectly formed.
Devine, her lines were always exactly right,
she had the eye and the appetite.
To compensate, she hardly ever cried,
but her buttery eyes were warm to my sight.
She claimed the center of my centrifuge
with her gift of circles, she became a refuge.
But gravity pulls hard on shoulders and wheels
Even the planets are pulled into line.
The whirling dervishes have all disappeared
Gone to nirvana’s lost hemispheres.
A lifetime of circles she spanned every height,
With her arcing reminders of eternal light.
Cock Fight
I saw them from a distance, the group of men
and older boys, huddled around two fighting cocks,
black-feathered, standing, resting their necks
pressed against one another, like sated lovers
not wanting yet to speak
the group, some of them, chuckled in happy expectation
then drew breath : the cocks fell upon themselves ,
dervishes on fire, tearing at feather,beak and skin
then a a mafia-faced man half my aged stared, until I
signaled to him “just looking!” which he seemed
to accept:
after a short while I left the poultry “ablaze”, still
their feathered- hubris unfazed, with their cackles and
gaggles and cock-a-doodle-do’s, and a memory of the
mafia and gambling men and boys
"Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like the barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tonight a mournful wind
is blowing an endless lament,
accosting me like the sudden gust
that swept hope away.
Wind was once a willing consort;
our careless love echoing
like laughter upon it--
before the jealous blast
of world war demolished you.
How the dreary years have passed,
leaving infant dreams
to the incessant whorls of time.
03/03/2018
Feeling a presence larger than life
bowing palms seem to pray to a force beyond,
black sullen clouds drift up the coast,
wind-driven spit of God marks its spot in a rough way.
Grey ocean mauled, shudders like a duck on a cold day
burgeoning waves a rough painting to the tortured sky.
Nature breathes power to uncontrolled chaos
what is not bolted down dances like dervishes for the oncoming storm.
Banshee music howls in concert with ravaging tidal surge
sideways rain stings the cheeks of those who stayed behind.
Darkness engulfs, turmoil pain, and death everywhere
through sonic and physical abuse the end seems near.
An ethereal glow forms between storm pulses
the eye is near.
Sun bursts out reflecting dewdrop rain
witnessing sparkling destruction.
All is quiet for the moment except for falling tiles from bruised roofs,
soon the other side will make its mark
on humbled earth and man.
Ever since we first crossed
each other's paths,
And our eyes met,
The sun and the moon
became my eyes,
Now I see you all the time
no matter where ever you are.
The wind whispers the straits
of your listless heart,
And the vigorous waves
bring ashore your news from afar.
Yet my heart is sorrowful
lamenting your absence,
I see you every where
but you are not in my arms,
The flower-laden boughs betray
the sweet fragrance of your tresses
But I cannot smell
the scent of your body.
Oh, no heart should ache with longing,
No hurt should go too deep.
Either you intoxicate me
with your ethereal beauty,
Or strike me down to dust.
For my love is my faith,
My faith is my belief,
My belief is my worship,
My worship is my salvation,
My salvation is my immortality,
My immortality is the divine consciousness.
Note: Jalal al-din Rumi is one of the world's
most revered mystical poets. He was a religious ecstatic and
an enraptured poet who invented the famous whirling,
circling dance of the Mevlevi Dervishes.
~Abdul Malik / 5/6/15
~Your Favorite poem contest by Judy Konos