“the bloodline of the roses has pledged me unto life”
(translation of this quote from forough is my own)*
and the white bathroom walls
were burgundy and crimson
red red red
the white bathroom walls
I never dreamed
it would splatter like a geyser
like the martyrs’ fountain
of mashad
that I once saw
in a book of photos
red red red
the waters of mashad
and then in the hospital
calm as a womb
they were white white white
the hospital walls
so I never thought
of those red bathroom walls
instead
I did crossword puzzles
it is good to exercise the mind in the hospital
it is best not to think at all
and I never dreamed
walls could be so white
and i never dreamed
life could be so death
every day
rolling into the next
like an endless stream without stones
and I never dreamed
one could live without time
empty and still
as a zen master
timeless and empty as time
and the empty food
and the doctors empty
and the bandages empty
and the white walls empty
and me too empty
white as a japanese funeral
and then somehow suddenly
I’d have to rush to the bathroom
and close the white door
that had no knobs
and whack myself off silly
imagining you
the you you’d never shown me
the you I’d never known
opening places in me
where I’d never gone before
and I never dreamed
how blue imagination
and crimson desire
could become so enflamed
within four white walls
of nothingness
and then I’d return to my crossword puzzles.
She was only thirty two
when she crashed into the wall
it was burgundy and red
on the car and the wall
she was crimson and vermillion
like a briiliant bird
she was not black like the crow of najaf
and
there were only thirty birds
but they all made one large bird
and then the large bird’s reflection
so that makes thirty two
and jesus too they say
was about thirty three
(so that’s close enough)
when he was burgundy wine on the cross
what is it about that number
well I’m no martyr
although I tried
I’m no mashad
and I’m no jesus either
but I think one day
i just may find the simorgh
the vermillion heart of simorgh
(I think I am in love with that number)
it had been calm as a white womb
within the hospital walls
white as a japanese funeral
timeless and empty as time
and I never dreamed
I would emerge so crimson
into the first kiss of wind
into the traffic honking
and all the people hurrying
and all the brilliant lights
and colors
colors everywhere
streams filled with multicolored stones
bright bright blue
oh waters of life
it is the bloodline of the roses
that has made me so crimson
it is fire and flame
that has pledged me unto life
life life life
vermillion
________________________
*Here is the link to my translation of one of Forough’s last poems, Tanhaa Sedaast keh Mimoonad, in my opinion her greatest, though not most well-known, work, from which the quote under the title of my poem is taken:
http://iranian.com/main/2007/forough-and-me
Jamshid provided the original Persian in the thread under that translation.