Songs in Search of a Musician

Described by one reader as sort of like Rumi meets Dylan this collection of lyric verse brings a new voice to the long tradition of English poetry. Written from the unique perspective of a western convert to Islam in the 70s Songs In Search of A Musician takes the reader on a journey across an inner landscape of emotion reflection insight and spiritual awakening.Accompanied by striking and original black and white photos the poems are gathered into four themed sections. The first Zam Zam deals with the relationship between the self and the Divine with pilgrimage prayer invocation and rememberance with death and the afterlife. The second Asabiyyah is a reflection on family kinship community love and loss travel and homecoming. Margin Call is a shouted cry against the crimes of usury banking speculation paper money war and injustice. Sufi Blues is a mixed bag of songs about the human condition poised as we are between fear and hope.This first collection of poems each with their own distinct rhythm and rhyme is perhaps best described in the opening poem Welcome Mat. And if you listen carefully you may just hear the tune as you read.Some of these are serious And some of them just aint Some are like trying to bottle mist And some are like spraying paintSome might cut you to the quick And some may cut you slow Words like stones in a dry stone wall Or drops in the rivers flowI offer them just like the sap That flows within my wrist In hope that you may catch the line Or maybe get the gistIf good there be its from my Lord Or from the ones that taught me Some just hit me where I stood Or as I turned they caught meSome dropped from my eyes as tears And dried here on the pages Some with sorrow some with joy Some quick and some for agesSome dropped like stone and rippled deep Within my caged heart And some burst like a water bomb And blew me wide apartCome taste a little taste a lot Fill your belly fill your pot And take away the ones that stay and linger One may take your hand One may take your heart Or may just touch the tip of your finger