If that Shirazi Turk would succeed in winning my heart
I'll give up Samarkand and Bukhara, solely for her Indian mole

Serve remained wine, Saki, cause you can't find in the paradise
Such a place as Ruknabad stream and Musall's gardens

Oh! these gypsies who are sweet and set the city to chaos
They drained heart from patience, as Turks take the pillages

My sweetheart's beauty doesn't need my imperfect love
How a beautiful face is in need of paint and powder and mole?

Talk about minstrels and wine, don't seek universe's secret
That is that, no one solved and will solve this enigma by logic

I knew beforehand from ever-improving charm that Joseph possessed
That love finally would bring Zulaikha out of her innocence

You talked to me badly, God forgive you, you said it well
Bitter answer is proper for that red-colored sugar-sweet lips

My soul, listen to advice, for blissful youths like more
That wise old's advises more than their own sweet lives

Hafez! you told Ghazals and pierced pearls, come sing fine
For your harmony in your poetry, Heaven weds Soraya!

When we met you said life had broken you
It started in childhood, what he put you through
And now you felt shamed because you were homeless
Abandoned by society, drifting and rudderless

You told me as though it was a ***** secret
And thought I'd walk away

You told me how you washed in the railway station
Fighting for work to improve your situation
Never giving up and never giving in
The very epitome of "Who Dares Wins"

And you thought I'd walk away?

You looked in the mirror and saw a loser
I cried and wished that I'd met you sooner
But you just said you'd learnt a lot
Sleeping rough on Christmas Day

You looked in the mirror, hated what you saw
But I looked at you, seeing so much more
Where you saw a loser I saw a hero
A samurai stood where you saw a zero

Knocked down 9 times you got up 10
If it wasn't enough you just did it again
Shotokan Tiger, in potentia
Noble, brave, strong.

Living proof that birth can't dictate you
That a ruined childhood needn't  break you
You overcame all, yet I never pitied you
Forged in flames and born anew

Vicious abuse from a cowardly father
A little half man who claimed to be a soldier
So "brave" he beat you black and blue
But he could learn to be a man from you

In you I see a Pilgrim, bold and free
Longing for mountains and glittering seas
Always going farther, one peak more
You'll  find your Mecca at the Dojo door

So walk beside me on the Golden Road
Let me share your honour code
Be my Sensei and guide my hand
While you light our way to Samarkand

I was altered in the placenta
by the dead brother before me
who built a place in the womb
knowing I was coming:
he wrote words on the walls of flesh
painting a woman inside a woman
whispering a faint lullaby
that sings in my blind heart still

The others were lumberjacks
backwoods wrestlers and farmers
their women were meek and mild
nothing of them survives
but an image inside an image
of a cookstove and the kettle boiling
— how else explain myself to myself
where does the song come from?

Now on my wanderings:
at the Alhambra's lyric dazzle
where the Moors built stone poems
a wan white face peering out
— and the shadow in Plato's cave
remembers the small dead one
— at Samarkand in pale blue light
the words came slowly from him
— I recall the music of blood
on the Street of the Silversmiths

Sleep softly spirit of earth
as the days and nights join hands
when everything becomes one thing
wait softly brother
but do not expect it to happen
that great whoop announcing resurrection
expect only a small whisper
of birds nesting and green things growing
and a brief saying of them
and know where the words came from

Return to the forest where I grew.
Because that is where you will find me.

Travel to the base of the hill, to the temperamental stream
Because that is where you will find me.

Go to the park and sit on the swing nearest the car park.
Because that is where you will find me.

At the field that watches over the sun's bed, follow the path to the storm drain, my shrine.
Because that is where you will find me.

Hear me in the wind, in every spark of purple and every stupid thing relating to every stupid joke I ever made.
Find me in Samarkand and in the playlists I leave behind.

Cast me to Zephyrus, so I can be in your lungs.
Because I want you to be, where you find me.

This is the one I could live off
watching how well she sings,
for whom I'd be ready to give off
my entire riches and things!

O she's got the voice as fine as
has never been heard in this land.
I could travel with her to the moon, as
to Rome and to Samarkand !

A happy little chap
Stares deeply at a map
What wonders he will see
The adventures he'll meet with glee.

Climb the mighty castle at Stirling
Scale a crumbling wall in Berlin
Soar over peaks to delight at Athens
Be a fearless Spartan, whatever happens.

Nothing is too preposterous
You'll sail through the Bosphorus
Stroll among the ancient gardens of Iran
To the piercing minarets of Samarkand.

Let the senses be bombarded by Karachi
Then speed like a bullet through Nagasaki
Fear and learn from such events past
Yet do not let a shadow be cast.

A life will surely be had
And no one will be more glad
Than that happy little chap
Who stared at the map.