Arts and Literature

نهار روز " شکر گزاری"

"به به سلام، چه عجب از این طرفها آقا! خیلی خوش آمدین. مگه اینکه دیگرون دست شمارو بزور بکشند و بیارنتون اینجا، خودتون که اصلاً یادی هم از ما نمیکنین! نه باکفش بفرمائین، تورو خدا در نیارین، صفا اوردین، بفرمائید بریم تو ایوون همه اونجان، بفرمائین." و ماهم با عرض ادب، خضوع و خشوع معمول و چاق سلامتی با شیرین خانم و شوهرشان ایرج خان و چند تن دیگر از میهمانان ایشان که مثل بنده و دوستم مسعود قدری زودتر رسیده بودند دست دادیم و وارد منزل زیبای ایشان که در منطقه با صفائی بنام "پاسیفیک پلی صید" مجاور تپه های سر سبز "سانتا مونیکا" قرار گرفته است شدیم.>>>

Mothers and their sons: Secret whispers

Horse-drawn carriage
Skids the stone,
Cemetery's birds sing a
Redeeming but drunken atone.

White-haired woman
Bends on her hump,

From beneath the son says,

"I am safe and sound." >>>

Lost

You walk beside my life
Looking ahead
Lost in what has to be
What can’t be
And I look at a last love
Looking in despair
Turning away from us
And disappearing in the midnight.
>>>

Dried Rose Petal

The girl whose journal was full of poems and rose petals
Turned out to be a cruel hunter
Chasing young prey
To taste still shaking young flesh
On her cherry lips
With her heart hidden in her grandma’s chest
Mask on her face
Sucking nectar like a butterfly >>>

Where is that brave?

Where is that brave, who has seen your face, daring to speak?
Where is beloved, who has longed for you, and didn't freak?
Who has the patience, to smell your scent, from far meadows,
The source of that scent, on head and on feet, began not to seek?
Who on the globe, has seen a picture, behind some curtains,
Kept claiming arts, before your image, didn't go bleak? >>>

Roses for Rabia

her last love poem she lettered
in her blood, her own pool of warm
blood dripping dipping in it
her fingers made of moonlight

as she lay dying on the tainted
tiles of a public bath
bent against the wall

bright Rabia Balkhi
Persian poet painter Princess

>>>

Embrace Me As You Did "Shams"

O' Mollana, Begging Upon Your Feet ..
Mesmerized By The Presence of Your Spirit ..

Bereft of All Evil, Embracing You In Love ..
With The Spirit Rising, Torrents Rush For Comapny ..

The Blessing of Your "Breath", Meandering My Existence ..
The "Casualness" of Your Stare, Awash in Tranquility .. >>>

Gift of love

It was autumn of 1998 when Rumi and I became friends. I was in my first semester of junior year in college; bubbling with excitement and preparations for the following semester which I would spend in Sevilla, Spain. During Thanksgiving break at home, I received a couple of gifts from my brother who had just returned from a business conference in Minneapolis. As the baby of the family, I was accustomed to this. What I did not expect however, was to receive a gift from his friend and co-worker Don, who had also traveled with him. I opened Don’s package to find a small book with a red cover containing 2 CD inserts. The word ‘Eshgh’ (love) was written on the cover weaved-in with its English title, “A Gift of Love Deepak and Friends Present Music Inspired by the Love Poems of Rumi”>>>

بگذار زبانها بگویند

در 22 نوامبر 1988 پس از شنیدن خبر قتل داریوش و پروانه فروهر شعر زیر را نوشتم:

ای دشنه
كاش بر آن دست
شوریده بودی!...

چرا شاعر دشنه را مورد خطاب قرار داده است؟ چرا قاتل را نه؟ و از آن مهمتر چرا مقتولین را نه؟ 

>>>

Let all tongues speak

[PERSIAN TEXT] On November 22, 1998 after hearing of the murder of two Iranian dissidents Dariush and Parvaneh Foroohar, who were stabbed to death by the secret police at their home in Tehran, I wrote this poem:

O dagger
I wish you had rebelled
Against that hand!...

Why does the poet address the dagger? Why not the murderer? And more importantly, why not the murdered?

>>>

At least his whores are melancholy

At least, his whores are melancholy. Ours are beaten, underpaid, overworked, anguished, and subjected to all forms of torture on a daily basis. Ours passed the melancholy state long ago. I’m referring to a book by the Colombian novelist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, entitled “Memories of My Melancholy Whores.” It was banned in Iran, after selling out, because the censors discovered that the title was sanitized. The word “whores” was replaced with “sweethearts.” The prostitute in the book is a fourteen year old girl who is the object of a ninety year old mans lust, and then love. Iranians will not be offended by either the title or the 76 year age difference. We know of far worse. We have known far younger whores being the object of madness, for the lack of a better term, not just lust and love.>>>

In search of morning

Last spring I read Dar Josteju-ye Sobh (“In Search of Morning”), the memoir of Abdorrahim Ja’fari, founder of Amir Kabir publishing house in Iran. It is an unforgettable book...Driven by equal measures of intellectual curiosity and enterprising spirit Ja’fari built his own version of the great Amir Kabir’s legacy. He educated the public as he educated himself. He saw the potential of the market for new works and ideas and devoted his considerable energy to building and expanding it. He helped create a reading public. By giving decent contracts and royalty to his authors and translators, the former print house worker ended up supporting a class of professional intellectuals. As businessmen go he was a rare breed; he took financial risks on the market for intellectual pursuit. And, lo and behold, Amir Kabir grew and prospered.>>>

شکنجه‌های رایج

تمامی رژیم‌های سرکوبگر استفاده‌ی گسترده از شکنجه را به عنوان اصلی‌ترین و کارسازترین ابزار برای دست‌یابی به اطلاعات به منظور دستگیری، سرکوب، فروپاشی و نابودی نیروهای سازمان‌های مترقی و مبارز و مخالف خود می‌شناسند. آن‌چه که رژیم جمهوری اسلامی را از دیگر رژیم‌های سرکوبگر دنیا متمایز می‌کند، تداوم شکنجه، آزار و اذیت و اقدام‌های خودسرانه و غیرانسانی بعد از دوران بازجو یی و در دوران تحمل کیفر و حتا بعد از آزادی از زندان است. دامنه‌ی اقدام‌های سرکوبگرانه تا آن‌جاست که خانواده و کودکان زندانیان را نیز در بر می‌گیرد. در نظام جمهوری اسلامی شکنجه در سه مرحله و به سه منظور انجام می‌گیرد>>>

Old & gorgeous

- “Could you please give me a lift? The weather seems fine. I’m going on a date with my camera and don’t fancy wasting time trying to find a parking space.”
- “Another old and grey building to explore?”
- “This one is more brownish than grey. Anyway, how do you know it is going to be a building?!”
- “It usually is.”
- “It’s that magnificent, abandoned building on London road; you know the one near the Piccadilly station?” >>>

Touch the Sky

Blindfoled, hands shackled behind me, I stumble on the ripped hem of my chador. They laugh.

I am dragged by the armpits. My knees bang against each step of the gallows. The crowd cheers, "Death to the prostitute, death to the adulterer."

I've committed no crime. I'm still a virgin.

>>>

Forough and me

People here sometimes ask me how I came to things Iranian, and this is a difficult question to respond to. Because one never comes to things like this; these things always come to one. And if I explained how Iran came to me, those who had to ask me would never believe me, and those who would believe me never ever ask. Nonetheless, I shall single out two "events". The first one was September, 11, 2001, when I like many of my "hamvatans", looking deeply into the flames, began to ponder the "Muslim world." But my research led me inexorably to Iran, as though it were a road I'd trodden often long before>>>

Declamations

Humans have zeal
We are creatures
Who venerate
This is true even
For those who
Don’t know
What is worthy?
And find substitutes
In kings, ayatollahs >>>