“Do you love poetry?” Someone asked me.
I used to listen to Shamloo citing the poems of Rumi and Khayyam during the nights of war in the dark, walking in my room, going from one corner to another, and pausing for seconds by the window to watch the city outside, the apartment buildings facing our apartment building, the narrow street, and people in their home -- unaware of being watched -- and feeling like a voyeur... Maybe this is how I loved to be a writer.
Every night, the old woman of the second floor washed her feet in her kitchen sink, looking tired and bored... Maybe this is how I decided to leave my home.
Every day I hid behind the curtain of my room, waiting to catch the light of the morning, holding an unfinished book, a novel, a voluminous story about imaginary characters that I knew they had never existed and wiped off the invisible stains of the glass or counted the stars until they all disappeared in daylight, so I could open the book, to find the sentence I had read the last, to throw myself inside the flow of a life which had nothing to do with the stillness of my room... Maybe this is how I longed to become someone I wasn’t.
In the morning, the young girl – living in the sixth floor at the other side of the street - put make up on her pale face, standing at her window, and her black hair playing in the wind and the light reflecting on her mirror proved her existence, while at the bottom of the building a bald man in a Mercedes waited to take her on a date... Maybe this is how I began to hate traditions.
At noon, a man in a wrinkled suit hurried back home for lunch; his wife had already set the table and stood at the window facing my window. Her face was drawn; she never smiled at the sight of her rushing husband. The man would sit and devour the rice and stew, while the woman poured water and tea and looked hungry. He talked and talked more, talked louder, moving his fists, scratching his nose, tossing the plate, hitting the table, while the women turned less and less alive, crushed, disfigured, vanished under the falling word bombs ... Maybe this is how I learned to listen to the silence between the noises.
Every afternoon the boy I had a crush on – the boy with eyes of gold who had disappeared after the war started - showed up with a missing leg and a missing heart, but his eyes had turned into red and he wasn’t handsome anymore... Maybe this is how I despised war.
Every morning – as I was opening my eyes - Mother was there to remind me to work hard, to study, to be strong and fearless, and to live the life I deserved to live.
Every afternoon, I sat with her, looking at the sky with wonder. Watching for any light, waiting for any sound. Trying to catch something we had never grasped before. She would listen to my made-up stories with her eyes glowing in the dark, without a word, keeping the distance, holding the silence. I never learned whether she had nothing to say or it was just her wariness about her own irrelevance.
Every evening, I hid in my room, but she always knocked on the door, to tell that the dinner was ready, that there was a world waiting for me, and each time I opened that door to join her, the perfume of her sweet dishes filled the gaps and the holes of our separation. She always smiled at me, even if I had seen her – all the time - sitting sadly at the window of her kitchen watching the world passing by… Maybe this is how I longed to live the life she had stopped to desire.
Each time I fell asleep and each time I woke up, I couldn’t set apart the world of fantasy from the world of reality. I couldn’t distinguish the boundaries of my being in the realm of my nightmares. As if I had created a new life within the authenticity of my imagination, inspired by the veracity of a fictional past… Maybe this is how I began to love poetry.
I nodded. “Yes, of course I do,” I replied.
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Great Essay
by Emma (not verified) on Tue Feb 03, 2009 03:03 PM PSTYou are back to be a real writer, letting your real self come out and see through people.Lovely moments with your mother are described beautifully. A good mother gives hope and make us live the life that they had stopped to desire. Or maybe, they are just completely absorbed in that desired world and they do not want anything, even reality ruins it.
A poet at heart
by Multiple Personality Disorder on Mon Feb 02, 2009 03:57 PM PSTThe passage about your interaction with your mother gave me the goose bumps. Also your last sentence, a simple nod, in its simplicity, defines who you are, a poet at heart.
Thanks!
by Azarin Sadegh on Mon Feb 02, 2009 08:53 AM PSTMany thanks to Zion, JD, and Orang for your kind words! I truly appreciate your feedback!
Azarin
PS: Orang Jan, I loved your first poem! It made me nostalgic of my own childhood...as I was born and grew up in Mazandaran, so I spent most of my summer days in the sands making sandcastles and running away from the waves washing the shores!
Nice texte
by Orang Gholikhani on Sun Feb 01, 2009 09:45 AM PSTVery nice texte Azarine Jan, many souvenir we share with you.
It made me thinking about when I began love poetry?!
I think it was when I built my first sandcastle. It was a very simple one and nobody stopped to admire it!
For me there were a princess to rescue and many Ogre and Ghoul to Fight. When Caspian’s waves finished by keep it away, and my princess became a Seamed, I had only one idea: Making another one!
It should be my first poem
Bravo!
by JD (not verified) on Sun Feb 01, 2009 09:09 AM PSTI enjoyed reading it twice.
ابول
میرزا حسن خان غمزه (not verified)Sun Feb 01, 2009 09:05 AM PST
ابول اقا دانش:
داداش رسم بر اینست که وقتی شعر کسی را ذکر میکنی اول بسم الله بگویی که شعر از چه کسی است. با نگفتن نام سراینده شعر هم خودت را خراب میکنی و هم حق شاعر خورده میشود. چون ما میدانیم شما که از این گونه مطالب نمینویسی و اکثرا تمرکز فکریت روی دفاع از انقلاب است.
باری،نام شاعر باید بطور صریح و واضح بالای شعر بیاید ونه در پائین صفحه و آنهم بعد از امضا. مگر خر گیر آوردی؟
البته بسیاری از ایرانیان این کار را میکنند و بصرف آنکه شعری را در گوگل پیدا کرده اند، فکر میکنند اکنون صاحب آن شعر هستند.
beautiful...
by Zion on Sun Feb 01, 2009 04:02 AM PST..and nostalgic. Even though almost all the recollections were about things that drove you in the other direction, one can feel the nostalgy itched on them. At least that's what I felt! This paradox between the message and the feeling was relayed very well.
Thanks to Irandokht and Feshangi!
by Azarin Sadegh on Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:54 PM PSTDear Feshangi,
Thank you so much for always being so nice! Azarin
******
My Dear Irandokht,
Thank you so much for your wisdom!
You said it the best! It should be a kind of curse...even if I forget people's names or faces, but strangely I still remember so many images of the past with all the details about the lighting, or my place in the room, or the coldness or the heat of the season, or the vivid colors of the walls or dresses. Most of all I cannot let go of many emotions…I particularly remember emotion on other people’s faces. The way they tell a story, or react to some news, or just the way they sit still while they really need to scream.
Maybe that’s why I don’t follow the current news. I don’t watch TV. I don’t read about politics…I’m simply afraid of their devastating effect. I feel like having already too many scars on my skin that I’ve forgotten about. What if after reading some of those "ugly world" news as you say I start bleeding again? Well, I'm not that young anymore. Plus, I’m not as brave as you and I have stopped trying to save the world… :-)
I just write my own little absurd stories, so I can forget about that ugliness. Because in the world of fiction, I can be fair and I can keep everyone alive, if I want to...as in my stories, the "ugliness" has a particular purpose, even a positive one!
Thanks again for your wonderful comment, as always!
Azarin
Azarin jaan
by Feshangi on Sat Jan 31, 2009 09:35 PM PSTVery nice and beautifully described. A hint of Rear Window but much more impressionistic. I liked it very much.
Feshangi
Dear Miny,
by Azarin Sadegh on Sat Jan 31, 2009 07:08 PM PSTThanks a lot for your comments!
I totally agree with Sandburg's definition of poetry. Since these days it seems it is getting harder to define the boundaries of poetry. What is a poem? What isn't? Have you read some of Naanaam's poems? Even if his poetry doesn't follow the classic rules of poetry, still they're truly wonderful poetry! So I think it is all about those dreams of touching/reaching the impossible, flying in air, or getting to the end of a rainbow!
Thanks Mini for your lovely poem and other things...
Azarin
Hahahaha..one more thing..
by Miny (not verified) on Sat Jan 31, 2009 06:46 PM PSTThere is one quote by somebody "Poetry is the journal of sea animal living on land wanting to fly in air"
okay here is the complete one i googlefished it..
"“Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.” -Carl Sandburg
i love poetry...
by Miny (not verified) on Sat Jan 31, 2009 06:41 PM PSTand something i wrote sometime...
Unsung text
Coppices of the universe
The progenitor of verse
Born out of
an obligation
to die
And live a lie
A Life of fever
A Life of fret
Threatened to forgive
Threatened to forget
Deliberate omissions
Of commanded submissions
And respecting for gain
The unacceptable again
In the heat
Rising to the pretext
Rinsing the eyes
Bearing the Verse
to live a life
of an unsung text.
Hey Azarin...Hi!
by Miny (not verified) on Sat Jan 31, 2009 06:28 PM PSTWow...you are amazing...so good to know some people have meaningful thinking and which involves not themselves..you think for others...thats beautiful most...
Dear Azar
by Hassan Danesh (not verified) on Sat Jan 31, 2009 04:56 PM PSTThanks for the compliment. But a response to your inquiry it is fair to say by profesion I am a Sociologist and write poetry as hobby. However it remains to be seen if such work of hobby out of blue find a suitable market and audience-- The of course I would consider myself a poet first by throwing a grand party with you of course invited and having all night long party with no end in sight in the underground with infinite stair cases each lit with a candle light til to the surface...
I enjoyed your poetic prose quite a lot.
Love,
Hassan
Azarin jan
by IRANdokht on Sat Jan 31, 2009 03:52 PM PSTThis is a very well written piece.
Maybe it's a curse to have such a good memory and recall all those details... or maybe it's a gift that allows you to reach a surreal world and to find an escape from the real events and news in our everyday lives.
It's a treat to read such "nuggets" especially for the ones like me who still suffer the reality of an ugly world.
Beautifully done.
IRANdokht
Dear Dr. Danesh,
by Azarin Sadegh on Sat Jan 31, 2009 01:51 PM PSTLovely feedback! You couldn't give me a better answer!
I really liked your poem...I also liked the picture of old winery.
But now, I have a question for you, since you are a poet!
Do you think it's the fact of being a poet that makes you appreciate the beauty, or it is the fact that you become so impressed by this beauty that makes a poet out of you?
Thanks again, Azarin
Thanks!
by Azarin Sadegh on Sat Jan 31, 2009 05:01 PM PSTDear Jahanshah, and Dear Darius,
Thanks!
This piece was actually part of an email I wrote for a friend, and I transformed it later into a longer piece or nugget as Jahanshah calls it! Honestly I still don't know whether it's a poem or an essay...but for sure, it is not fiction!
Thanks again for your kind words of support!
Azarin
Something new in my heart.
by Francesco Sinibaldi (not verified) on Sat Jan 31, 2009 01:37 PM PSTI'm going to
believe that
everything shines
in the light
of a footprint,
with a loving
desire, in the
sound of the
darkness.....
Francesco Sinibaldi
Longing...
by Dr. A. Danesh: DAD (not verified) on Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:45 AM PSTI am longing
For an old wine cellar
With humid slippery stair cases
Going down and further down
To reach them
In utter darkness
I love the perfume of old dust
Sitting on the bottles
In patience since antiquity
To me in these emaculate histiric grave yards
One can find the bone of my ancestors
Who fought for love
That must spread for humanity
Beyond border & shaloow hastened convention
Oh this humidity in cellar
Remind me that my
Soul is of the same nature
As my good old grand grand grand... more grand father
Oh I love antiquity!
For in its dust
I find the vapor of freshness air to breathe
In a sunny day one find by old sea
Let me hold one of you in my hand now
To bring you en route the slipery damped stair cases
To the light of surface
To uncorck you
To hear your ancient sound of pouring
To share you with friends for few hours
That could last for millennium
With its imprint on one's soul memory
O the glory of you in your unnderground dress in dust
Is at par with the beauty of sun light after the storm
Abol Danesh, January 2009
From The Underground
Inspirational
by Darius Kadivar on Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:27 AM PSTBeautiful Azarin Jaan.
So many nuggets
by Jahanshah Javid on Sat Jan 31, 2009 02:54 AM PSTYou ARE a writer.