"Of why and what don't ask!" (Hafez)

O Beloved you said     of our state   don't ask!
be a stranger!      & how we relate   don't ask!

Yet your grace is abundant     & life's benign
our misdeeds don't recall!     how we rate   don't ask!

If you hanker the key of love's pain    to grasp
ask the wick about flame!    the wind-spate  don't ask

It's Rose-season Hafez!   wisdom's last year's news
Seek the gold of now!     of why & what   don't ask!
 

After Hafez

There is no pen that has the tongue to tell   love's tenebrous secret
beyond the ken of words e'en sung right well       ineffable longing

====

earlier version (but I now favor the above one):

There is no pen that has the tongue        to tell love's deep religion
beyond the ken of words e'en sung right well lies longing's region

The Purloining Versifier's Lament [ghazal]

O when might Hafez find himself   in English perfectly?
couplets he's scrawled & signed himself   in English perfectly?
 
'twill never happen!  say   the savvy never-happen-sayers
(though he'd ne'er be unkind himself   in English perfectly)

he's said to be the Farsi poet   perfectly unwilling
to drunkenly unwind himself   in English perfectly

what is this reticence Poet abstemious!   mere shyness?
you've never wined nor dined yourself   in English perfectly?

if senseless Raphael he'd lend   Suleiman's storied goblet
Hafez might heart-&-mind himself   in English perfectly


========

Suleiman's goblet:  the chalice of King Solomon, which (in Islamic literary lore) is ascribed wonderful properties.

[Admittedly, this poem is merely a sort of intellectual amusement -- written in response to discussions about the various attempts by English-language poets to give translations and "versions" from the celebrated 14th century Persian poet Hafez.]

After Hafez [couplet]

The traveler on the way endures     incessant tribulations!
with love as your constant guide you quell a thousand complications

Fortune Cookie (After Hafez)

  | The universe and its activity | all naught into naught comprise |
  | a myriad times I've the veracity | of this proved with mine own eyes |