Morning In The Tavern Poem by Daniel Brick

This is the first of five Sufi-inflected poems which I wrote in one marathon session. I immersed myself in a new Penguin anthology of Sufi poetry called ISLAMIC MYSTICAL VERSE (highly recommended new translations) . I doubt this is true in Islamic societies, but in the West this poetry is virtually secular in spirit. It is the web of figurative language that makes the Sufi model so flexible for us. Since this is not Sufi poetry in the primary sense (which Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues is both religious and Islamic) , I call my poems Sufi-inflected. It's an awkward term but it is direct and honest. The last line is a kind of pun: Muslims pray five times a day, so I borrowed that custom, and predicted five poems. After I wrote the fifth poem, I realized the inspiration had fulfilled itself. It was time to withdraw into silence.