This poem to me, https://pathwriter.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/poem-du-jour-hafiz-in-many-parts-of-this-world/, is a perfect example of: Buddha After Hours In A Bar, or Hafiz After Hours In A Bar, or any real teacher after hours in a bar ... when most all of the patty-cake of right and wrong can stop. Well, most all the patty-cake can stop; cause some of the real esoteric truths about things is really only suited and can really only benefit and be appreciated by— so very, very few ... at any given time. But I feel we are all very much evolving to a place of True Oneness. Thus all would be self; is that not true? The illusion of other would stop.

I can remember walking one day with my teacher, Eruch Jessawala (whom I have mentioned in my blogs previously), and out of the blue, he says: “Danny,” (as he always called me), “Why are you so attracted to the writings and poems of the great poets like Hafiz, Rumi and Kabir, when you could be reading Meher Baba's words that I even helped to write, and to get into print? Aren't Meher Baba's words more alive and giving to you?"

I was very caught off guard by that question. I felt Eruch wanted me to take it seriously, and to answer sincerely, but also as quickly as I could. I also felt there was no judgement in the question; he was just going to help me know something, and was choreographing that in a unique way that would also be helpful in the long run. I thought for a few seconds as deeply as I could, and maybe Eruch even gave me the answer to his own question. I mean, to me he was the personification of a Zen master with all the trimmings. Though I always felt part of his greatness was: he could appear and act (and so often did) perfectly normal. 

I replied: "I think I am so attracted to Hafiz, Rumi, Kabir and some of those great poet-saints, and what I can see within their poems, because I feel they sometimes speak to me the way Meher Baba spoke to you. I don't think Meher Baba could speak to the world the way he did to you.” 

And immediately Eruch said: “You are exactly right! Meher Baba could not speak to the world the way he did to me. For the freedoms in those greater, more sophisticated truths would not at all benefit the average person. The freedom in those truths could easily cause more suffering for that person and those they were close with, or to whom those truths were enacted upon.” 

Then Eruch so clearly and exactly said to me: "Danny, do everything you can to reveal those greater truths through your poetry work. And I will help you."

***

And I very much try and do that at times when I feel it is then a legitimate rendering, or legitimate expounding on a poem, as I have done in my six poetry books. Like in this Hafiz poem-rendering above. 

And it is interesting to me with there being so much controversy around some of my Penguin Random House published work at times, there becomes a kind of natural filter if you will; a shield or protection if one wants it, that could then allow one to dismiss some of my work with Hafiz and Rumi and those in my (to me) wonderful Penguin anthology, Love Poems from God. 

Eruch so sanctioned that book, and even gave me the title for it. And for that reason I think that book is really blessed, in a way few books ever are! To me, it is no small thing for a saint (which I consider him to be) to sanction and-or bless something. There is a tremendous lasting force there. 

And I think if there was a book titled: The Hundred Best Poems of Hafiz Ever & Ever In English So Far, and 50 of my Hafiz poems-renderings that I could pick out, were put in that book (in a blind test), and all the poems were presented in the same format and no attribution was given to the translator or renderer, and then 100 copies of that book were given to gifted artistic/spiritual/precocious types (who had never read any Hafiz or Hafez before); and they were asked to pick out the 20 poems that most meant something to them, and might most: safeguard, empower, free, inspire, and kick their fanny into heaven for a minute… I would bet anyone— and even give you ten to one odds: ten of my poems would be in their top 20. Hell, I might even crowd out that top 20 list with all of mine because: I got Buddha After Hours In A Bar, helping me. 

And Eruch is connected to any poem I have ever published, or ever will. He is still that alive to me— still that near. And my literary work is greatly connected to Meher Baba. And so, directly to Hafiz. 

I have truly seen Hafiz as few or maybe no one else now living has. And talk somewhat about that experience in, The Gift, Poems by Hafiz. I start talking-writing about that on page five. And that book has been in print since 1999.

As Hafiz says in one of my poems of him in A Year With Hafiz:

                                                  Love kicks the ass of time and space.

I had never seen this above website before today, I don’t think. And just noticed they have a couple of my Hafiz poems here. If you read one more, try:  I Have Learned So Much. That poem got licensed by Depeche Mode some years back and was used on something they called, The Tour of the Universe. Something about that band and this poem should still pop up if you Google: Depeche Mode Hafiz. 

Always thanks for reading, and good Holidays to you— those are coming up.