It is true.
I once had an ear that got sold to a fish.
Lean back: I will be glad to tell you all about
How it happened,
But first I must digress a bit,
Perhaps way beyond any logical sequence
Of events
We may ever again piece together.

Let’s see,
We could start anywhere,
With any word,
In this fertile luminous world in which I live.

What is the first letter of your alphabet?

A,
O—
That will be just fine.

Art is the conversation between lovers.
Art offers an opening for the heart.
True art makes the divine silence in the soul
Break into applause.

Art is, at last the knowledge of
Where we are standing—
Where we are standing
In this Wonderland
When we rip off all our clothes
And this blind man’s patch, veil,
That got tied across our brow.

We are partners straddling the universe.
Someone inside of us
Has one foot
Upon each resplendent pole.
Someone inside of us is now kissing
The hand of God
And wants to share with us
That grand news.

You will find yourself knee-deep in ecstasy
When all your talents to love
Have reached their heights.

Hafiz, time, space, and boredom
Are just passing fads.
All your pain, worry, sorrow
Will someday apologize and confess
They were a great lie.

Let’s see,
O yes,
Look how we got distracted,
“Beyond logical events.”
I remember we were talking about:
The Ear That Got Sold to a Fish.

It is true
The moon once put a price
Upon my head.
And then hired a gang of
Young thugs.
It seems the Beloved felt
I had been telling too many secrets,
Giving too much of His precious wine
Away for free.

So I got called before a fat burly judge.
But I pleaded my own case well.
I said,

“It is all the fault of prayer,
It has filled me with divine treasures
That I love to loosely spend.”

So,
I brought a ticket for my eye
Upon that White Sky Bird
That never touches ground,

And I bribed an ancient deep-sea fish
To buy my ear and drown.

Now whenever the Beloved whispers
Or even slightly moves
I get a scouting report
That a thousand saints could envy
And would pawn their hearts to know.

Hafiz has become
One of the greatest spies upon God
This world has ever seen.

That is why the moon once got rough.
That is why that fat burly judge
Once crowded all of heaven into a small jury box.

God knowingly did risk my case becoming famous
If I won.
I think He really wanted my name
To spread forever wide.

Have you ever contemplated the thought
As I once did,
That the Beloved already knew, already knew,
Everything long before,
So long before we were ever born.

But now to end this drunken song
With its essence in refrain:

Art is the conversation between lovers.

True art awakes the
Extraordinary
Ovation.