vermillion

                 

“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. 

 

 

 

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