Poets Leila Farjami and Mana Aghaee have launched their collaborative representation of contemporary Persian poetry in English. Toomar.com comprises poetry by the two aformentioned poets in addition to translations of other Iranian poets' poems. below are four samples. Farjami will be reading poetry at Alta (506 31st St, Newport Beach, CA 92663, phone: 949-675-0233) Wednesday night, July 12th at 8:00pm.
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The Sea Prophet
Leila Farjami
There was no distance from the shore
where I could see all the sea shells,
all the sand grains jammed in the mouths of dead fish,
all the people sitting in the sun,
all the winds blowing from East to West
flailing the small carousels of a Caspian noon.
I could have drowned
without any one ever knowing,
I could have been like the man
who has slept inside me for years
searching through the waters for a mirror
that still retains the reflection
of white birds dragging their shadows
along a ragged sky.
I could have been like the man
who has slept inside me for years
waking up in a storm
and not ever finding a way to dry land.
*** *** ***
Divorce
Mana Aghaee
Having read the palms of all the fortune-telling
today’s ration is the bitterest of cups
while my heart trembles like a carton of milk
when the coffee spills over from all the pages
onto the divorce decree.
I told my sister
the prince is in the fairy tales.
Today, being in love requires assets,
free time, and focuswhich I lack.
My patience is low,
my concerns high,
I don’t care if all aspirations are decapitated!
Here, there is the electricity outage again,
car tires are flat,
young horses have lost track in the heavy snow of roads,
as I declare again
it has been a long time since
all this has gone over my head.
This sky is excessively high,
the place for a stool is missing beneath our feet.
Since the first I do I heard
to the last the no which I learned to say aloud,
I don’t know how many times I have been battered,
but I do know one thing:
Regardless of what wedding tablecloth* I sit by
my final response is always the same.
I have asked my mother whatever she does
not to bring a handkerchief
because we have cried enough,
and I claim this uninhibitedly.
It’s only in the old picture albums where we laugh,
a place where they drape our heads with white lace,
thrust sweets in our mouths,
and write in large letters on the cakes: happy union.
It’s twelve o’clock,
it’s any minute now before the kids return from school
like hungry wolves
while I sauté the onions fast,
like all the rest of the wives in the world,
pouring fried mint leaves on the whey soup
while I abbreviate ten years of life into ten short sentences.
My brother, the wrathful God of the house,
who thinks he knows all the recourses,
never carries a key.
More obstinate than him
is the man stuck to my dress button
refusing to fall off.
* Traditionally ornamented tablecloth used in Iranian weddings, as they are spread on the floor with various decorations on top such as mirrors, candles, sweets, bread, the Koran, and flowers.
*** *** ***
Small Women, Big Men
Leila Farjami
The small women of my city
breastfeed their infants
while gazing down from the rooftops at the windy polluted freeways
where they count their neighbors’ satellite dishes;
the small women of my city
steam rice, pickle garlic,
brew aromatic tea, say greetings to the morning’s eight o’clock;
the small women of my city
are so minuscule
that one would have to detect their invisible footprints
under a laboratory magnifying lens;
the small women of my city
belong to the big men of my country,
the big men resembling Ahmadinejaad’s neurosis at night
in their life-size mirrors,
overdosing in public restrooms,
dying every day;
the big men of my country are so big
that their celestial guide books do not fit into any alter,
their philanthropic laws can never be etched on any slate;
the big men of my country know how
to become the forefront defenders of human rights
by merely not burying their lovers alive.
Despite it all, I confess
that the big men of my country
were born of the small women of my city.
*** *** ***
Morning Prayer
Mana Aghaee
Lord,
you have elevated the mountains,
created the night from whooping coughs,
and evened out farmlandsby the grasshopper’s sneeze.
Lord, you are grand, grand!
Lord, you have the right to get angry.
Lord, you have the right to separate the account of water
from that of the desert,and to tackle
down whomever you resent.
Lord, you are the one with your verses straightening out the sheep,
while your cane instigates the sons of Israel against us.
Lord, whenever I read a book,
walk up the escalator,
or smoke due to extreme thirst,
I think of you,
Lord!
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