Arts and Literature

The Spider Killings (18)

Azadeh woke up in a cold sweat. For a few seconds, she looked around disoriented at the unfamiliar room in which she had been sleeping. She was lying in a lower bunk bed and someone was snoring on the top. In front of her, another set of bunk beds was erected against the wall, where other women were lying asleep. Her first instinct was to look for Yassi and then, she remembered. The awful reality that her friend was dead smashed her with a hard thud on her forehead like a stone aimed at her with a vengeance from afar>>>

تولد

اميد خاك باران نيست،
درختان اين زمين
آنان كه دگر پوسيده اند
آب را زندگانی چه؟
اميد روشن آنان
اما
زمان است. >>>

Ghost in the house

...>>>

Friday

Silent Friday.
Desolate Friday.
Friday dreary as decrepit alleys.
Friday of ill lazy thoughts.
Cunning-wide-yawns Friday.
No-anticipations Friday.
Friday of surrenders. >>>

Dominating others

Published during revolutionary times in Iran in 1979, Missing Soluch is a 500-page tribute to the socialist ideas that so enthused the Iranian intellectuals and writers of that period. Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, who comes from a village in the north-eastern province of Khorasan, has worked in agriculture, as a craftsman, and in theater in Tehran. Published about ten years after the revolution, his longest novel and perhaps the longest existing Persian novel, Kalidar (10 volumes), earned him a permanent place in the history of Persian literature. Kalidar, is about the simplicity, dignity and bravery of ordinary people in a village in Khorasan>>>

The Pomegranate Path (3)

Back at Ollie’s house his mother was brushing her long, silky black hair after having taken her evening shower.Sitting at her vanity mirror in her house robe and slippers, she looked intently at the fine lines which in the past few years had begun to form around her eyes.Even now at forty-nine, she was a fine-looking woman by anyone’s standards. Every night, she meticulously went through the same routine of applying an assortment of expensive creams and lotions to her striking face and gorgeous neck.No one could ever accuse her of not trying her very best to hold back the toll that the hands of time inevitably inflict upon every once young and once beautiful woman.She wasn’t entirely convinced that her regimen of beauty products was having the desired effect, but at least she wasn’t giving up without a fight>>>

صدوهشتاد و نه پله*

از صدوهشتاد و نه پله به پایین می لغزم...
یک: همسرم که تیرباران شد
دو: جفتی که مرا واگذاشت
سه: پسرم که دو خانه دارد
چهار: خواهرم که در زندان زاد
پنج: برادرم که بی نشان مرد
شش: تار شدن چشم هایم
هفت: اندوهان تبعید. >>>

189 Steps

I trip down 189 steps...
One: my wife executed in Tehran
Two: my mate leaving me in Venice
Three: my son living between two homes
Four: my sister giving birth in prison
Five: my brother buried in an unmarked grave
Six: my failing eyesight
Seven: my sorrows of exile >>>

تصادف با شیر

کم کم دارد جزئیات به یادم می آید! من هم یادم نیست از کجا می آمدیم یا کجا می رفتیم. همین قدر یادم هست که ماشین را در دنده ی خلاص گذاشته بودم، گرم اختلاط بودیم و سرازیری جاده ی"پهلوی" را که "مصدق" شده بود، و هنوز مانده بود تا "ولی عصر" بشود، آرام به پایین می لغزیدیم، که ناگهان اتفاق افتاد. نزدیک بود قالب تهی کنم. آره! یادم هست که جیغ کوتاهی کشیدی که بیشتر شبیه به یک ناله بود، انگار که بگویی؛ خدایا! یا عجب بدشانسی! همان وقت بود که متوجه شدم چیزی پیچیده در یک چادر، روی کاپوت ماشین می لغزد. مثل این که در آن لحظه هیچ کداممان جلو را نگاه نمی کردیم! تعجب من هم از همین بود. در درازای چند ثانیه ای که ترمز کردم و پایین آمدم، صدها فکر در ذهنم می چرخید.>>>

…و

"من شعر نمی‌نویسم: واقعیت‌ها را می‌نویسم". روژه‌ویچ می گفت. روژه‌ویچ آزرده و عاصی. ۱۹۶۹. تقریبن چهل سال گذشته است و این حرف او هنوز طنین سنگینی دارد. در جهان مصنوع ما، جایی که هر چیزی بر صحنه‌‌ای آراسته می‌شود تا "واقعی" جلوه کند، مردم به ناظران بی‌تفاوت و ناتوان واقعیت فروکاسته‌اند. بمباران اطلاعاتی و تسلط تکنولوژی بر بیشترعرصه‌های زندگی اجتماعی (ماشین مَجاز‌سازی) کمتر رمقی برای درگیری رگی و خونی با واقعیت باقی گذاشته است. در این جهان بازگشت به واقعیت شرط اساسی بازگشت به خویشتن و در نهایت کشف دوباره‌ی شعر است. >>>

The Spider Killings (17)

Azadeh and Roxanne had just finished washing Yassi’s body at the mosque. It had been a grueling task. Azadeh remarked to herself that in death, Yassi resembled her more than she had during her lifetime, her body covered with cuts and scratches like her own. They had never looked so much like sisters. Except these wounds had not been self-inflicted and they had been deadly. Exiting the mosque, a feeble and trembling Azadeh was supported by Roxanne on her way home. The older woman had been at the side of the young girl almost exclusively for the past two days.>>>

You and Us

You, when you make love
you demand comfort
a bed of cedar
and a special mattress support
Us, when we make love
it is easy to arrange
with sheets, how great!
without sheets, just the same. >>>

Premonition

“Would you like another one?” The man sitting at the bar offered the woman next to him.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Uma replied in a seductive tone while playing with the empty glass in her hand.
“I enjoy your company. I like to prolong our exciting conversation.” He responded.
“I have every reason to be skeptical of your intentions.” She sneered.
“That’s because you’re cynical. I like that in a woman.” >>>

lounging in the curve of my lips

something about life seduces my bones
twisting my hair in its grip
rooting me to the moment
something in the elusive nature
digs every finger of time into my heart
how my insignificant body contains such vastness
i ask

>>>

The Knock of Love

In a late afternoon, at a spacious hotel room with a large balcony facing the high rising waves of ‘Coogee Beach’, making surfers looking like driftwood, in Sydney, I heard a knock on my door. Immediately, a smile broke upon my face as I was getting to the door, just to confirm that no one was out there. You see…for a few moments prior to that knock, my ‘Heart’ and my ‘Mind’, accompanied by my ‘Intuition’ had gotten together on an intimate chat (that soon would become almost a public chat forum among all the elements of my Being), discussing the arrival of my beloved>>>