Interview

Interviewed by the Iranian journalist and poet Mrs. Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi. Thank you dear Farideh, for introducing me to the Iranian public.

Aggression

Don’t interpret; show the human trek!
The implicit aggression and threat in food consumption.
A bite on a piece of bread, or a bite on the neck:
I live, you die – satiation versus starvation.

This late afternoon in early June

This late afternoon in early June,
on the Craterus beach
(hail river Byzantine General
robbed of water and victory)
my field of vision, a cerebral canvas,
is aching to split horizontally in half.

The top is in flat, smooth strokes of baby blue:
sky and sea in a seamless pairing,
almost imperceptible if it were not for
the petrified dragon – the isle of Dia –
divulging to reason the Line.

The frequent whirs and drones align with the shore
to alight on the hard shoulder of the General
to my left and hatch the seasonal suitors
of sun, sand and sea.

The bottom half is livelier,
a honeycomb of gritty gold and grey
worked with the palette knife
of the setting sun on sand.

The near crackling of dice in the tinder-less
abdomen of a backgammon echoes in my brain
and I cannot catch the silence of the sailing wind.

Heeling ... the soul

A wry smile studded with tiny
wooden pegs.
(How do they taste? I wonder!)
He pinched one peg out,
fixed it on the heel
of a shoe
and hit it with his hammer.
Thud! Thud!
One in.
Count: two, three, four, five.

The shoe is ready, heeled.

Cobbler, can you do the same with my soul?
Can you heal my soul?

Of course, I can, the cobbler said.
He swooped me up in his brawny arms,
stretched me on a cross and ...
Count: one, two, three, four.
Four nails.
Vinegar taste.
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Published by Taj Mahal Review, Dec. 2007

An Old Photograph

Despite the blur and lag of forty years,
this photograph of women five –
the four in black and gray
and just as old as hills with caps of snow in May,
and one, the young, inclined her bel esprit to hide –
brings back a lot of memories and tears.

With crochet hooks and needles long in hand,
they sat on wicker chairs across my home
and knitted yarns and gossiped as in band,
“O my, isn’t she a cow and he a gnome!”
about an oddly looking couple under public gaze,
but never meant to offend a soul in fulsome praise.

And I, a boy engrossed in prankish play,
would sneak behind their backs to cut with shears
I used in art – to their subdued dismay,
the yarns squirming up from sluggish skeins
to slothful fingers wrestling hooks and needles
for slip knots and cast ons and stitches.

Until one summer day the young
caught me in the act and spoke in bitter tongue:
“Our lives are yarns or threads inclined to snap
while weaving patterns by Design
to which all must needs one day resign.
Even the bad and the good and the worst and the best
can not evade or skirt this High and Nigh Behest
entrusted with the Fates whose task is time impressed
(to goad people to their timely bane).
Now, if you, a boy as pure in heart as pain in the ..ss,
insist on your portentous play and us to harass
the Fates will surely follow suit – alas!
and cut our threads before our time comes.”

Bower

My aching blue buds my sinews empower –
when you are not looking,
when you are naked sleeping
up there – to launch me into your misty bower.

Think not that I must climb the turret tower,
or fret at openings barred with wrought iron grille,
for I can blink to naught all hindrance at will
and nest upon your balcony sill –
a groin-glowing eager bower.

Blast my desire for you, little flower!
as you innocently roll from side to side,
for ever in my dreams a maiden bride
and to mischief at dawn always a bower.
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Published by Taj Mahal Review, Dec. 2007

Your hands

I am jealous of roses and jasmines,
of their lingering fragrance in your hands
and of everything you touch and make or do
with your ivory semaphores of love.

Let your fingers spend your heart’s treasure
in prodigal bouts through my hair
and, in closing ranks, run down against
the stubble of my cheeks.

Hold me there, bound by your opiate charm,
until the raging winds of desire bring this hull
of a body to ruin – for ever trapped,
in the barrier reef of your eyes.
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also in "Thanal Online"

Touch me!

I am jealous of roses and jasmines,
Of their lingering fragrance in your hands,
And everything you touch and make or do
With fingers divine and tender.

Touch me, heal me or kill me!
I will love you just the same.

Touch me, for I must melt
In your hands,
As pity melts the mind
To love.

Heal me with a touch to leave me
Stranded, for ever a cast away,
On the raging coasts
Of your eyes, or

Kill me by taking my breath away
As your fingers conduct the orchestra
Of my senses on the podium
Of my naked body.

Touch me, heal me or kill me!
I will love you just the same.

Transformation ... at Lust

Flesh, she –
fullness, roundness.
Contour's the culprit, the serpent.

Bloodshot desirous of flesh,
I kneel like
a Camel
and she rides and, lo!
I'm transformed,
a Lion.
I devour the journey up
to a lush, wet oasis.

Satiated at journey’s end
I'm transformed again,
an Eagle.
Blind to her geometries,
I soar
to claw-frosting heights
until vision succumbs to contours again,
and am desirous of flesh,
a Camel, a Lion, an Eagle again.
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Published by: ken*again

The Mosaic of my Shattered Ego

When I think of you chained
To someone else's happiness,
The twinkling bells of light,
Fastened to the sable mantle of the night,
Rain on earth their evanescent tears.

If you were mine,
And mine alone ,
Everything would fall in place proper:
The mosaic of my shattered ego.

You and I

Dear Adriana – old lady from the days of yore –
In rain or shine, you and I and many more
Live to toil over many a work and chore:
You peddling flowers from door to door,
And I bound the meaning of words to explore.

Some day, dear Adriana – be it far or near it matters not –,
The ferryman shall carry us over to the other shore,
To the land where pain is pain no more,
But a garden resplendent in shape and form
Where words are flowers that never rot.
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Revision of "Translator in Low Spirits"