“He Kissed Me Once” by Bahar Saied
He kissed me once and stole my lips
and robbed me from sleep
I am scared if he touches my body
my patience will be invaded.
I have come to you to taste your body
my lips fall on yours, tasting your mouth
with my fingers I tear off your shirt
I taste the nakedness of your chest.
I am inhaling the perfume of your breath
and touching your body with my breast
tasting the burning of your body on mine.
Come and carve me, my body is yours
carve me in your heart in the night of dreams
come and carve me until morning
with beautiful touch and kiss.
I love the buttons on your collar
which ask me to open them
and throw myself on you.
– Bahar Saied, translated by Bashir Sakhwaraz
“I Know Someone” by Mary Oliver
I know someone who kisses the way
a flower opens, but more rapidly.
Flowers are sweet. They have
short, beatific lives. They offer
much pleasure. There is
nothing in the world that can be said
against them.
Sad, isn’t it, that all they can kiss
is the air.
Yes, yes! We are the lucky ones.
“Some Kiss We Want” by Rumi
There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives,
the touch of spirit on the body.
Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling!
At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.
Close the language – door and
open the love window.
The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.
-Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
“Eternity” by William Blake
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise
“Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,” by Pablo Neruda
Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.
-Pablo Neruda, XII From Cien sonetos de amor
“I Want to See You” by Rumi
I want to see you.
Know your voice.
Recognize you when you
first come ’round the corner.
Sense your scent when I come
into a room you’ve just left.
Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.
Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.
I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
“more”
-Rumi
“For the Pilgrim, A Kiss” by John O’Donohue
III. Body Language
The shadowed thinking of the looking eye,
always onto the hard shoulder of things.
It can never rest in light because the heart gives it to feel
that the next look might glimpse
the white window at the top of the stairs
that leads up out of this underworld
of echo, and shadow, and resemblance.
If anything the skin should have been destined to see
as it faces everywhere at once.
Instead it dwells blind inside one word: touch.
Even blue sunlight by shimmering seas
finds it’s still stuck within its lonely brail.
Always in the dark, no matter what the light
or what sapphire thought might bead it with tears.
Perhaps this is why the kiss sweetens the mouth.
The lips land ever so lightly on the inside taste of another being.
You can taste the wet cling of their taste,
moisten it into your own liquidity,
and your tongue can penetrate and search out
that pink cave edged with teeth
that cut from the silence cords of consonant
to weave through the voweled-out spaces
nets to catch the whispers of the heart.
“You Better Start Kissing Me” by Hafiz/Daniel Ladinsky
Throw away
Your begging bowls at God’s door
For I have heard the Beloved
Prefers sweet threatening shouts,
Something on the order of:
Hey, Beloved,
My heart is a raging volcano
of love for you!
You better start kissing me –
Or else!”
-A reinterpretation of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
“Who ever desired each other as we do?” by Pablo Neruda
Who ever desired each other as we do? Let us look
for the ancient ashes of hearts that burned,
and let our kisses touch there, one by one,
till the flower, disembodied, rises again.
Let us love that Desire that consumed its own fruit
and went down, aspect and power, into the earth:
We are its continuing light,
its indestructible, fragile seed.
That Desire, interred in time’s deep winter,
by snows and spring-times, absence and autumns,
bring to it the apple’s new light,
that freshness disclosed by a strange wound,
like that ancient Desire that journeys in silence
through submerged mouths’ eternities.
-Pablo Neruda, XCV From: ‘Cien sonetos de amor’
“It Acts Like Love” by Rabi’a
It acts like love – music,
it reaches toward the face, touches it, and tries to let you know
His promise: that all will be okay.
It acts like love – music, and
tells the feet, “You do not have to be so burdened.”
My body is covered with wounds
this world made,
but I still longed to kiss Him, even when God said,
“Could you also kiss the hand that caused
each scar,
for you will not find me until
you do.”
It does that-music-helps us
to forgive.
-Rabi’a, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
“Seekers” by Dorothy Walters
“What you seek was seeking you.”
-Rumi
How is it
that when I was
looking for You,
You were seeking me also?
Silently You watched and waited.
Sometimes gave me
a brief glimpse
or taste
of who You were,
like a shy deer in the forest
that vanishes when
you turn to look.
And so I roamed,
looking here and there,
gazing at the hieroglyphs on trees
or peering into the throats of flowers for secret revelations,
listening to the waves
pounding the shore for messages,
examining books and stars,
seeking essence.
Finally I gave up my searching,
surrendered my deep desire
to stillness.
And then You gave me a kiss
that lasted forever.
“Verse 47” from “The Radiance Sutras” by Lorin Roche
When by oneself, flooded with delight,
Simply in the memory of that kiss…
Here is the inner ritual.
That lick, that taste of nectar,
That caress, embrace, particular pressure…
Your subtle body replays the dance,
Inundated by divine sensations.
Melting, merging, swelling…
Surrender to the deluge.
Know it as your own.
This ocean of bliss is you.
-Lorin Roche (from The Radiance Sutras. While this is a reimagining of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, these are more poems inspired by the original work than they are translations).
“Die Before You Die” by Rabi’a
Ironic, but one of the most intimate acts
of our body is
death.
So beautiful appeared my death – knowing who then I would kiss,
I died a thousand times before I died.
“Die before you die,” said the Prophet
Muhammad.
Have wings that feared ever
touched the Sun?
I was born when all I once
feared – I could
love.
-Rabi’a, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
“Today, Like Every Other Day,” by Rumi
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
— Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
“Like This” by Rumi
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like this.
-Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
