at times over the past year, i’d thought about writing a blog called khod koshi. and since the topic just came up, i thought i’d at least post this poem i wrote on the subject. the majority of suicides fail. you have to really know what you’re doing. i very rarely do, and i have observed that generally speaking neither do most people. there is a moment when you experience what we usually mean by death, but afterwards there is a different kind of death. i will dedicate this to two people here. one of them i want to say, thanks for the clam chowder. we’ll do it again one day. the way up is the way down (the fragments of heraklitus of ephesos).
vermillion
the bloodline of the roses has pledged me unto life
–forough, translation mine**
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
i saw once
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
about 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 white walls empty
and the doctors empty
and the bandages 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 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
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
if I try
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
that when I emerged
into the first kiss of wind
iand all the cars honking
and all the people hurrying
and all the traffic lights
there would be colors
colors everywhere
streams filled with multicolored stones
bright bright blue
oh waters of life
it is the bloodline of the roses
that shall render me crimson
it is fire and flame
that shall pledge me unto life
life life life
vermillion
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http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45728000/jpg/_45728692_darabi_020.jpg
** http://iranian.com/main/2007/forough-and-me
