Azin Izadifar

I don’t know the ways on the ground.
My sense of direction evaporates under the sun.
Extensive noise ,intense light ,too many signs everywhere
and worse than them all; the multiplicity of
the scrambling bodies on all four
make me lost.
Searching for addresses I show up somewhere else.
Vanishing into the soil and tunnels underground
I flow, like water, though.
I know the dark passages shaped throughout
the time by the thirsty licking tongue
of water on silent stones.
With glittering silver eyes
I feel along the rocky walls.
Every subtle change in the texture of each stone
hums the next coming curve
into a million ears of my fingertips.
Every singing slim water beam
sliding down a cleft softly whispers my way open .
And the strange obscure smells
half-forgotten yet known
penetrating my invisibly trembling nostrils,
like rays of light for the eye,
illuminate “my” way.
“My” way:
Spotted with rotten torches still burning
with the dim memory of the last millenary flame,
blackened bloody leather footwear,
fallen knee joints, dried heels and broken shanks
left behind from exhausted steps
far ahead of mine millenniums ago
It still is mine.
I see the unseen dead droplets of sweat
breath in the odors diffused from bodies
still lingering in the ancient air
and yet I know nobody had ever before
and will never after take this very pathway.
I should admit that I’m untamedand
might I even say primitive;
Sniffing secrets well hidden from people themselves,
feeling the feather touch of every breath
of each intention on my skin.
I gaze into the strangers’ eyes
pierce into the darkness of their souls
and see it all in mine;
a black mirror, I am.
Immerging into the earth
emerging out of nowhere right where I should
I grope in life instead of walk:
A dark under-wave, I am.
And I know that it was “where I should” come to
by three simple signs, or just one:
“Here’s your dream!”
“Here comes your nightmare!”
And they always only mean:
“Get ready for the mishmash of both!”

Emerging; I put my bare foot on the ground;
mesmerized by the ascending euphoria of a dream
Watching it in full blossom;
manifesting in the pure sky above,
Letting the soles of my feet believe
in the solidity of the soil
and forget the solemn scary dark abyss;
that hungry mouth of nightmare
opening wider with every step taken.
Just a very short walk,and I’d be swallowed,
consumed, immerged, once again.

My feet don’t know the ways on the ground,
But my eyes have never seen any dream
nor a nightmare pinned to a destination
written down on a neat white piece of paper,
by others’ hands.

Azin Izadifar
February ,2012