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 70's, 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 ain't Some are like trying to bottle mist And some are like spraying paint

Some might cut you to the quick And some may cut you slow Words like stones in a dry stone wall Or drops in the river's flow

I offer them, just like the sap That flows within my wrist In hope that you may catch the line Or maybe get the gist

If good there be, it's from my Lord Or from the ones that taught me Some just hit me where I stood Or as I turned, they caught me

Some dropped from my eyes as tears And dried here, on the pages Some with sorrow, some with joy Some quick, and some for ages

Some dropped like stone and rippled deep Within my caged heart And some burst like a water bomb And blew me wide apart

Come 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