This week's Bitchin' Queer Poem

I saw you last night in the gathering,
but could not take you openly in my arms,
so I put my lips next to your cheek,
pretending to talk privately.

-Rumi

For the first official "Great Queer Poem," I had to give you something by Rumi. Rumi was a poet who lived in the 1200s (Yup. September 30th will be the 800th anniversary of his birth!) in what today we call Turkey.

It amazes me how this feels fresh, real, and as if it was written TODAY. Rumi was a master of poetry, much of it ecstatic and homoerotic. (Oh, and he didn't title his poems, so I won't presume to.)

The above poem is from pg. 98 of "The Essential Rumi" translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne.