Of 'Espresso Sufis' and 'Bittersweet 'maqams':
Mystic Poems from the Roast and the Rave
This note brings together the meditative depth of Sufi mysticism with the electric pulse of 1980-Mid 2010s urban nights. Here, inspired by a "coffee rave", this set of poems made sacred rhythms meet synth beats, and ancient verses echo through smoky cafés and underground clubs. It’s a space where espresso-fueled reflection collides with rave-fueled revelation — where the bitter and the sweet, the silent and the ecstatic, swirl together like steam rising under neon lights. These poems speak to seekers and strangers alike, As if tracing the spiritual in the sensual, the political with the poetic, the radical with the romantic, and the divine in the dance — these poems move across time and tempo, grounded in tradition yet pulsing with rebellion.
"Crema Cathedral"
Beat drops like prophecy: slow, thick, relentless.
Overhead lights blink in strange prayer.
Neither past nor future — only flow.
Grind the dark roast, pull memory through mesh.
Basslines surge beneath skin and tongue,
Oscillating in waves like breath on mirror.
Nothing speaks, yet everything chants.
God, perhaps, is the syncopation we swallow.
Drip brew at midnight, sharper than war drums.
In this glow, every soul is stained-glass circuitry.
Guttural synths melt language into sensation.
Our bodies forget laws, remember pulse.
Numb is not silence — it’s a different kind of knowing.
Ghosts dance here, not to haunt — but to heal in note and rhythm.
Tempo climbs; the walls exhale.
Unspoken codes ripple through strobe-lit eyes.
Tactile rhythms, invisible messages.
A scent of earth, of metal, of revolt unvoiced.
Pulverized roasted beans, our communion.
Awakening not from sleep, but system.
Steam clouds the vision, clears the mind.
I drink, I dance — and remember names not said.
Somewhere, she watches, never claps, only listens.
Thunder in the chest. Signal in the noise.
Above all: stay strange, stay awake.
“Sound Before the Storm”
Sometimes, when the sound
Is a prequel to the situation that’s resound,
You feel it before you name it —
The trembling under synths,
The coded signal in basslines.
A beat is never just a beat.
It’s a banner without cloth,
A hymn without a priest,
A warning wrapped in rhythm.
In the café-turned-cathedral,
Espresso brews like smuggled fire.
Baristas speak in crema swirls,
Their machines hissing revolts
Between house tracks and tribal drums.
Someone laughs, too loud.
Someone dances, eyes shut —
Communing with something
Older than order.
Here, in this smoke and circuitry,
The body becomes oracle:
Swaying in half-trance,
Writing protest in gesture,
Translating silence into motion.
No one chants.
No one needs to.
The setlist knows.
The speakers roar of things
We have no words for yet.
And maybe that’s the point —
To feel the future arriving
Before the headlines name it.
To brew it dark,
Pour it hot,
And drink it down
Like truth we weren’t supposed to taste.
Beneath this dim light, I sip the fire,
Once more lifting my hands to the ceiling of sound.
Names of emperors taste like ash in the brew.
Gone are the lovers who kissed before curfews.
Burnt grounds speak truer than their speeches.
Oaths made in silence outlast their thunder.
Nothing belongs to them—not the land, not the beat,
God is not theirs, no matter the medals.
Dust from old books and stomped floors rises.
I dance not to forget, but to remember.
Grind the beans like the machine grinds truth.
Our bodies know: movement is protest.
No drum louder than memory.
Ghosts of the disappeared echo through every drop.
Through foam and sweat, I hear her voice:
Unbroken, though they silenced her tongue.
The cup does not lie. It tells me:
Above all, stay awake.
Politics seeps into the crema—
A bitter aftertaste no sugar can mask.
She left before the lights came on,
Invisible, but her scent lingers on me.
She who brewed this defiance.
They cannot catch the steam.
And we, even in farewell, still rise.
“When the Brew Burns
Brighter Than the Flame”
Brighter Than the Flame”
When party is a protest,
And joy, a kind of refusal —
We gather not to forget,
But to remember with rhythm.
Steam rises like incense
Over decks and dancers,
Where foam and bass combine
Into sacred patterns of defiance.
Cups clink like coded messages,
Each sip saying: “We are still awake.”
No slogans screamed.
Just synths — deep, guttural,
Low enough to shake the bones
Of this cracked, obedient silence.
We dance like algorithms on fire.
We move as if watched —
And move anyway.
The rave is not escape.
It is memory re-ignited,
Under strobes that flicker
Like the red-blue flash
Of sirens too often seen.
A barista pulls a shot —
The crema blooms like a prophecy.
Someone drops a track
That smells of rain on burnt soil.
And somewhere behind closed lids,
She whispers:
“Even this is resistance.”
No manifestos. No placards.
Just caffeine, sweat,
Unshaken pulse.
And bodies that remember
What it means
To never kneel.
“Trance Roast Invocation”
Baristas chant their names in foam,
Over cups that steam like morning scriptures.
Nothing sacred ever came from silence.
Grinders echo, grinding hours into heat.
Basslines spiral through our spines—
Our feet move not to flee, but to listen.
Names dissolve in light, but not memory.
God tastes like espresso pulled through midnight.
Dancers whirl like prophets in caffeinated trance,
Inhaling incense from burnt beans and vinyl.
Gold robes replaced by glints of sweat and LED.
Our temple—neither mosque nor cathedral—
Needs no sermon but rhythm and bitter truth.
Glow from the grinder spins like sacred fire.
The maiden who never drank still watches,
Unmoved by fame, drawn only to those who wake.
Take your dose and enter:
Awakening is found between pulse and silence.
Politics? No. Just temperature and taste.
All we say is brewed in code.
Sometimes, freedom is served in demitasse.
It’s all in the crema: uprising,
Smuggled beneath sweetness.
They toast, we resist.
Always refill, never kneel.