Obscene
By Leila Farjami
February 9, 2001
The Iranian
Pardon me,
if I am too shallow
I have NOT been taught
when to speak
when to see
when to listen.
Pardon me if I am too shallow
my ancestral teapot has thousand-year old stains
my heart, thousand-layered ventricles pumping
galaxy of cells; stars
and my drinking water
is still soiled
by the maggots of the Dead Sea.
Pardon my eyes,
blurred
by the smudged blackness of an archaic antimony
masquerading the concave crescent
of Harem maidens' lids.
Pardon me,
if I am too shallow
my jug is not too deep
brimmed with parched pebbles
yet aversive to your artificial water,
v Pardon my feet, too
for they are barely touching your contorted earth
(not Pluto's underground flat!)
for they can walk so far
so far
as to stand in the line of self-indulged consumers
of slaughtered sheep and dead flies,
pardon my feet
for they may never reach
the alter of your God-given haven
of synthetic love.
Pardon me,
if I am too shallow
I can not unearth
what has not been buried,
I have neither mountains
nor valleys,
just a shacked plateau
I may be
of barrenness and mirage
with wandering pre-menstrual girls
lost
in the sandstorms of doom;
their mortal men:
lepers, beautified
half-naked
half-sleep.
their mortal men:
masters of intellect.
I have no peak
no abyss
no poles;
I am the equivalent of a mobile pale dot
occupied
for twenty eight years
from where
I've viewed your immaculate cosmos
through an obscenely diminutive life-scope.
