Poems of Love

"Do you know, my friends, where the real saints are?
Wherever I look, wherever I want them, they're there.

My words bounce off the loveless like an echo from stone.
Do you know, whoever hasn't got at least an atom of love,
lives in a wilderness?

Don't be a liar, don't lie to love.
Whoever lies here, earns a sentence in the other world.

Oh, you unaware of Yourself,
you don't understand the meaning of words,
if you desire the realness of Truth,
here it is in knowledge and in the Quran:

If Allah says, "He is Mine,"
Allah keeps giving the realness of Love,
has the realness of God within.

Many people tell Yunus,
"You're too old to be a lover,"
but this love is so new and fresh."
-Yunus Emre



"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind;love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
-1 Corinthians Chapter 13


I write of love, I speak of love,
yet I am entangled in the web of lust...
Struggling on the path
I slip and barely keep from falling

Here I stand with the sun caressing my face
The room appears clearer
I chant Your holy names as my hand counts the beads
My voice drifts into the background
Illusion overcomes me once again

I force my eyes close
I want to taste love.... To do that I must beg for love
Prayer is love.... The Names are the essence of love
Failing to practice this throughout the day
I feel shame as my hypocrisy is revealed
-Bal Gopal das