Poetry

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

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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؟ 

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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?

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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.

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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 >>>

Number theory and lovers

Take the number of your lovers,
Multiplied by the promises you
Made or were made to you
Establish the expanse of your
Heart's vulnerability.

Take the number of days
You have cried alone;
Confirm, in its aftermath,
Your soul's exponential growth.

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The Capital, again

is sucking on money.
Hanging about town,
among the riffraffs,
and the worried pants,
I noticed all of their faces
reflected in the glass
of this of all places. >>>

قایق کاغذی

خورشید مزه نارنج می دهد

و جاده چون رودی سیاه

زیر آفتاب ترش و نارنجی می درخشد.

من

خاموش

اما پر از آواز انتظار

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حرف

درد ما، رنج من، کار کردنی
باغ ما، راز آب، جوی کندنی
آفتاب، رمز نور، بار بردنی
رِنگ ساز، راز شعر، حرف گفتنی
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How, Where, When and What?

How do you measure the weight of a second, felt upon your heart?

How do you count the miracles contained in an hour, witnessed by your eyes?

How do you price and pay for the moment of a first encounter, with your life force?

How do you define the feeling of the first kiss, and comprehend it?
>>>