The top selling poets are Shakespeare, one, Lao-tzu, two, but who is number three?

I’d like to say Ginsberg, but I think he was out sold by Rod McKuen.
If you count the spoken word bits of cats, you might want to bring up Eliot.

I’m going with Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel).

Jalaluddin Rumi, and he is fast overtaking the other two… even now some say he is the most read poet of all time!
ME!
“ I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels bless’d; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e’er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones,
To Him we shall return.
”
از جمادی مُردم Ùˆ نامی شدم – وز نما مُردم بحیوان سرزدم
مُردم از حیوانی Ùˆ آدم شدم – پس Ú†Ù‡ ترسم Ú©ÛŒ ز مردن Ú©Ù… شدم
حملهء دیگر بمیرم از بشر – تا برآرم از ملایک بال Ùˆ پر
وز ملک هم بایدم جستن ز جو – Ú©Ù„ شییء هالک الاوجهه
بار دیگر از ملک پران شوم – آنچه اندر وهم ناید آن شوم
پس عدم گردم عدم Ú†Ùˆ ارغنون – گویدم کانا الیه راجعون
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi
.

It’s Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, a book once refered to as “The Bible of the Sixties”.