This is no Kaaba
For idiots to circle

Nor a mosque
For the impolite to clamour in

This is Kharabat,

      a temple of total ruin.

Inside are the drunk, 

from pre-eternity

to  Judgment Day

gone from themselves

=======

I thought of Thee so often

that I completely became Thee

Little by little Thou drew near

and slowly but slowly,

I passed away.

======= 

          Footprints, 

 come to the ocean's shore

 
          And therein 

no trace remains

 =======

Don't speak to us of visions and miracles

for  long ago, we transcended such things.

We saw them all to be illusions and dreams

and dauntlessly, we passed beyond them.

  =======

Are you willing to be sponged out,

Erased, cancelled, made nothing?

Are you willing to be made nothing,

Dipped into oblivion

If not, you will never change.

The phoenix renews her youth

 
Only when she is burnt, burnt alive

Burnt down to hot and flocculent ash.

 =======

I laugh when I hear the fish in the water is thirsty.

You don't grasp,  that what is most alive of all is inside 

your own house: 

and so you walk from one holy city to the next

with a confused look .

======= 

The caller calls in a loud voice to the Holy One at dusk.

Why? Surely the Holy One is not deaf.

He hears the delicate anklets that ring