Dervish at the Door
A dervish knocked at a house
to ask for a piece of dry bread,
or moist, it didn’t matter.
“This is not a bakery,” said the owner.
“Might you have a bit of gristle then?”
“Does this look like a butchershop?”
“A little flour?”
“Do you hear a grinding stone?”
“Some water?”
“This is not a well.”
Whatever the dervish asked for,
the man made some tired joke
and refused to give him anything.
Finally the dervish ran in the house,
lifted his robe, and squatted
as though to take a shit.
“Hey, hey!”
“Quiet, you sad man. A deserted place
is a fine spot to relieve oneself,
and since there’s no living thing here,
or means of living, it needs fertilizing.”
The dervish began his own list of questions and answers.
“What kind of bird are you? Not a falcon,
trained for the royal hand. Not a peacock,
painted with everyone’s eyes. Not a parrot,
that talks for sugar cubes. Not a nightingale,
that sings like someone in love.
Not a hoopoe bringing messages to Solomon,
or a stork that builds on a cliffside.
What exactly do you do?
You are no known species.
You haggle and make jokes
to keep what you own for yourself.
You have forgotten the One
who doesn’t care about ownership,
who doesn’t try to turn a profit
from every human exchange.”
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207 – 1273)
(Coleman Barks transl.)
Victor Artola: Los Angeles, or the End of Assimilation
From Ill Will (14/06/2025)
As we entered the fifth month of the second Trump era, the explosive social movements that marked the close of the 2010s seemed like a distant memory. The fifth anniversary of the burning of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis came and went almost unremarked upon, and in the weeks leading up to it rumors of a Derek Chauvin pardon were swirling across news outlets. Conflict seemed relegated to departmental staffing cuts and budget reshufflings, while the palace intrigue of the Musk affair afforded ersatz enjoyment in the absence of the real thing. However, Los Angeles’s mass anti-ICE mobilization — set off by the opening of a new stage in the state’s deportation strategy — has reignited that old summer feeling. Shorn of “the resistance” for the moment, rebellion is once again in the air.
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