The poems you’ll find here, with a new one every month or so (and some that won’t make it to the site), will appear in an edition of poetry that I’ll publish in 2010.
The style of the poems is derived from the Sufi tradition. I lived for some years in close contact with Sufi friends in India. They had escaped from persecution in several countries, and had found a safe refuge – just as I did – in Bombay, India.
The Sufi tradition in dance, music, art, and poetry has at its heart an intoxicated love for God. The Sufis don’t simply love God; they are in love with God. The trance of love, the ineffable ecstasy, the rapture that drives all of their art is the inexpressible heart of the numinous experience.
Very often, the poems and songs of the Sufi tradition are written in the form of romantic love poems, which can be interpreted as directed towards a human lover, or towards the Ultimate Lover – God. For the Sufis, all acts of true love are ways of loving God.
All of the poems in this collection of my work are set in the desert, and draw upon the imagery of the desert and the oasis.
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