Coffeehouse at the End of the Universe

Stella Maris

2010-08-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

9:37 PM Highway 101 North
60 mph stuck behind a truck
but in no time now this honda civic will take off

Knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door

dry lips skin mouth
no time to hydrate
but in no time now i will be immersed in the melted ice

searching for Stella Maris

what if your last love affair already ended
could you timebox the expression to 140 char
I see only the tip of the suffering

Tell me about Africa

Tell me about the horses
And don’t forget, the stomach aches, the fevers
Doctor’s scratching their heads, there is nothing wrong with her

Africa is far; horse cannot get you there

At which point, exactly, did you decide to
throw in your lot with the Ancient Mariner
Time went in loops on that one

Fire

2010-08-30T20:35:00.001-07:00

In this world, even the clouds are on fire
 Every contact is an explosion
I sat on the top of the mountain
Observed marching soldiers
I counted the bodies
They were my thoughts 
I tried to kiss the air it burnt my lips
 I walked through a charcoal forest
Its branches wrapped around my throat
They were my hair
My left foot got stuck in prehistory 
My right foot tripped over the moon
Since then I’ve been falling 
I am trapped in the burning wind
While my blood flows down the wire
 The universe has contracted and  gave birth to desire 

Dark Night

2010-08-08T01:23:00.000-07:00

“It was You Who threw me in. You get me out.” ~ Attar

I wrote words inside my head
they scratched my breasts, I wanted to wipe the blood
I searched under the cobwebs, I found veils
I searched under veils, I found clothes,
I searched under the clothes, I found layers of skin
billions years old machinery
the beast the stranger the other
I circled around them, I stared at them in the mirrors
And the blood kept flowing in its own ways
In tune with time, regardless of me
Like the river that knows better
than to wait for time
I searched
and the time kept running
I didn’t know when the stop
The horse was running away from me
I abandoned it
I called on the houses they stood still
Their dilapidation was slower than mine
I wanted to find a rose under closed lids
I found dried petals, someone was here long ago
I could not touch the image in the mirror
The mirror was so cold
I thought, someone, shake my head now
shake my hand now
I guess I could not find the rhythm
and everyone was sleeping
so I smoked a cigarette
I wanted to write words with the smoke
I wrote a few names, but they disappeared before they formed,
unborn babies unborn words bleeding thoughts
left traces in the snow
I still hope that
when the snow melts,
it uncovers the path, a path in the fog,
a path in the night, a path in the forest,
a path towards light

Shiraz

2010-07-09T01:16:00.000-07:00

The ground under your feet is woven from questions
Flames around your path form the faces of demons
Demons explode in flames and warm your path
Befriend your demons before you befriend mine
Because
I will be the Majnoon to your Leila
I will fly because the scent of roses from your city will be my fuel
I will be drunk on sweetness that weaves its words
across horizons and oceans and creates its own world
where no worry exists
The house in your city still stands
The highway that replaced it leads to heaven
The house stands in heaven
The highway is heaven
Every moment is new but it happened millions of years ago
What we know today is not what we will know tomorrow
We have fished out a piece of eternity
and we made a pact to get lost in it
like children that want to get lost in the maze
or department store full of toys
We feed on the sweet timelessness
The placeless is making us dizzy
The sound is wine
Wine that we drink that weaves our hearts together
What else is love than music
that signs the pathways
to our lives

Field

2010-05-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Between any two people, there is a field of imagination

And I will walk across that field

I will linger among the poppies

Lie down

Let ants crawl over me

Bask in the sun

Put a few flowers in my hair

I will smell the earth, so sweet, like bread

Let it feed me

I will swallow it and take it in

I may find an island of a forest

With wild thyme and berries

Maybe a skeleton and a creek

I will let them speak

I may get lost in that ancient language

Let it draw its shadows all over my body

I will lose track of time

The breadcrumbs of the earth may take me home

But perhaps your eyes will remind me of the sky

And I hope, you will also keep walking

Towards me

On your own path

The Mountain

2010-05-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

“Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.” ~Baha’u’llah

God is not dead, but He is buried under the mountain

I have entered it in search

I stroke a vein of hot lava

It has done something to my heart

I heard of treasures

I found organs

I discovered my sight in darkness

Now I can tell you

I see beneath the surface

That’s all I can see

I live under the mountain

I am climbing it from within

I am talking to skeletons

I go from grave to grave

They are all mine

Each day I discard so many selves

Each breath blows away some dust

Brings in some dust

Becomes indistinguishable from dust

But I follow the lava to its source

“There is a core, and it’s hardcore”
I believe the peak of the mountain

Is at the bottom

Note: the line “There is a core, and it’s hardcore” is from a song Undestructable by Gogol Bordello

My Story

2010-05-02T17:50:00.001-07:00

My story began before I was born
Since then I’ve been traveling with a backpack of questions
I’ve been stalked by dreams telling me of:
Missed planes
Too much baggage
Not having a ticket
Running to catch a train
Choosing to walk to my town too many miles away
I kept seeing stray feathers on sidewalks
I decided their meanings
They were white flags making peace with the future
And as I’ve been traveling
The land kept expanding like the universe
I met a few angels
They brushed against me on a train
They said, you don’t make connections,
You uncover them
I wanted to trust them
I believe I have not stopped trying
I made a pact with words
I signed a treaty with paper
It was to hold me
My story is my land

Far Away

2010-04-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

I saw a shooting star

It overshot our planet

It planted a tree somewhere else

The clouds unveiled the moon

It burnt a hole in me

Two stars stared into my eyes

But they were far

The night was just beginning

Animal

2010-03-14T01:06:00.001-08:00

The hunters came, they lit the fires,

Started dancing around them

Roasting meat

Chunks they snatched from the animal

The rumor went, it was still alive

Crawled into the forest bleeding

Wondering if the lost parts can grow back

It was starving

It drank its own blood

Feeding on the fragments of its broken heart

Wondering “Am I vampire, is this the next life?”

Its body was fading into oblivion

Its spirit was near extinction

It called on spirits

They came, sat down next to it

and whispered verses

In the language of the leaves

In the swaying of the trees

In the intoxication of high altitude winds

It drank its own memories

They made it dizzy

It was lost from its tribe

The tribe was busy

It watched child soldiers from the bushes,

It shouted warnings,

But only flames could hear it

It rested its head against the moist earth

And let it pray into its ear...

Secret

2010-03-07T21:54:00.000-08:00

Skeletons dancing in the blue room,

I let them be, they are not my business,

but I cannot stop watching

The earth is shaking

because our hearts are cold,

and I want to drink the sky

It’s orange gold liquid like its melted core

whilst The core is empty,

and in the emptiness,

a secret

The skeletons keep dancing

On my screen, next door, yesterday and tomorrow

I went to the bottom of the pool

I searched

I dug in the sandbox

I visited a few mines

I stepped on a few mines

I found rocks they were pieces of me

I dreamt of a forest

I have not yet given up hope of finding treasures

Once I came across my bones at the bottom of the well

I am assembling them now whilst the skeletons are dancing

The instructions are empty

But in the emptiness is a secret

The secret just around the corner,

at hand, but not within reach

In the Chinese cookie that you will buy tomorrow,

written on a sidewalk,

on a license plate of a car that passed you by,

and that you forgot

There is a word

The word is

closer than my life vein

I am not waiting for a message

because I have a message

My veins and bones have told me that

They can’t keep that secret

Phoenix

2010-03-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

Check my white clenched fists
Not white as in skin color white
Who has ever seen WHITE skin, really...
They’re white with heat,
from the hot breaths nearby
but they are nowhere near melting
They are hard and ready
They pound on my mind
Ready to drop these words
to fuel the earth of my heart
to grow something out of this ground

Because

They, the “not my people” they,
They banned
The blue for the Sureños
And the red for the Norteños
And the green for the Samoans
And then they banned all colors
And then they left the school in the state of arrested decay
They banned the niqab and the hijab and the yarmulkas
And drove off in their SUVs,
Feeling safe
Running over little animals
Taking pictures of dinner plates

Unaware of

The giant bird behind their backs
Spreading its fiery wings with feathers as flames
Its smoldering hot breaths on their necks
Its beak its claws ready
Ready to rip their hearts out
Ready to cut their heads off
Ready to burn them down to ashes
To fertilize this earth

Because we
We need to grow something

I was born to...

2010-03-01T15:50:00.001-08:00

Originally uploaded by Ramin Hossaini

For Ramin

I was born to
pose a question
and then find beauty
in the lack of an answer

Discussions with Ramin inspired my poem, and my poem inspired his photo. I think.

At the Threshold (of a Dream)

2010-02-28T02:55:00.000-08:00

You and I, we don’t get along so well

I scare you

(I like it that way)

You scare me

(I disguise that by scaring you)

I do not want to belong with your broken furniture

Your worn carpets

The earth suffocated by your concrete roads

that you have built to take you nowhere

Death is your destination

as much as it is mine

and perhaps that is what connects us

Meantime I need to understand

the white deer from my dream

I enter the misty forest as I stand by this road

watching the cars swish by me

They’re going nowhere,

but I am onto something

I just need a clue,

I know there is a message,

but as I need it most

I turn away

Mesmerized by all those cars

swishing by

perhaps someone is going somewhere

like me

I went into that forest

and what I saw is still undecided

The whiteness of the deer

at the edge of the forest and the Garden

said it is OK to be white

Really your skin is fine

you is you

But the light was beyond any light

and the beauty was inexplicable beauty

And so perhaps it is OK to have light and beauty

But not to possess it

Just see it for what it is

Under the surface of the traffic hour mayhem

In dilapidated schools

In air conditioned office blocks

Underneath it all there are fields

waiting waiting waiting

waiting for us

to do something

Ayyám-i-Há

2010-02-27T01:38:00.000-08:00

Ayyám-i-Há starts at sunset.

I turn away from people. I cry. I think of a boy.

“Anger that has its roots in love is helpful.”

I am angry because I am powerless.

"Remember flight. The bird is mortal."

I actually don't know much about Ayyám-i-Há. The days of the Essence of God.

Days out of Time.

There is NO time.

It feels strange to feel strange during such days. I know nothing of the Essence.

I consider myself lucky if I sometimes feel what could be its reflection.

Love.

Forget the boy. Remember love.

Forgetting equals to: Pounding music and hot food.

Fast and hot.

“Being in love is totally punk rock”

I can’t be in love with the Essence.

I need to put a face on it. A flower. A word. Maybe a reflection in water.

“Open, spontaneous trust is what sustains punk. And I think that's why drugs kill it.”

Forget the hot food, punk.

Anything can be a drug.

Love?

Anger?

Trust isn’t a drug, but it’s an anti-dote.

How do you know if your anger stems from love?

“You will know your anger stems from love if you have nothing to gain or lose by it”

I have nothing to lose.

I don’t believe in gain.

“A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.”

I can’t grasp light with a clenched fist

I can’t grasp love with an open palm

But I can burn down

Burn down in love or anger

I sense the smell of revolution and I follow it like a blind dog

I don’t know any better

“Every revolutionary act is an act of love“

I want to believe

Wanting to believe is almost trust.

Notes:

“Anger that has its roots in love is helpful.” - Anita Barrows

"Remember flight. The bird is mortal." - from a poem by Forough Farrokhzad

“Being in love is totally punk rock” - from a comic A Softer World

“Open, spontaneous trust is what sustains punk. And I think that's why drugs kill it.” - a tweet by Kaitlin Foley

“You will know your anger stems from love if you have nothing to gain or lose by it” - a tweet by @stooey

“A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.” - 'Abdu'l-Bahá, from the Paris Talks

“Every revolutionary act is an act of love.“ - Che Guevara

Spirit

2010-01-23T13:31:00.000-08:00

Love is a strange buffer

It is a veil that shelters us from terror

Wonderment comes as a deep cut

Before God shreds our heart

Spirit runs thicker than blood

Bewilderment

2010-01-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

“The body is damaged by the bewilderment of spirit”

Wendell Berry

For we do not quite belong here, do we?

There is something off about this world

The way night takes over the day and sharpens the senses

The way the voices resound in the mind and reverberate across ages

The dreams of flying out of the body

The threads that connect the dreams in their own evolving story

We wear our bodies like clothes

We search through the layers for a key

But we are locked in love

We are wired to love

And sometimes the inertia of love crushes us

and we fall into its net

only to find thousands of others in the same boat

and it does not matter whose hand we hold:

your people are my people

The wind blows us like weeds in the same direction

It shoots us among stars we are meteorites flying upwards

It plants us like wildflowers in the shelter of the highest peaks

Yet we are so clumsy we trip over thoughts

We fall through blind spots

we break so many things, hearts, mainly

while our bodies are breaking down too

so that they can feed the earth

and our spirits can feed on love

I was born to...

2010-01-17T01:29:00.000-08:00

For Ramin

I was born to

pose a question

and then find beauty

in the lack of an answer

Rain

2010-01-05T23:22:00.001-08:00

The rain last night created a mist of tiny droplets

connecting the street lamps,

the houses, and the shops into one village,

in which our dreams are inescapably blue

elusively blue, blue with beauty,

beautiful with blue

Blue of far reaching spaces

that meet on the horizon line

just the place we want to reach to see what’s on the other side

But if you close one eye and open the other

you see the other side of the rain

For one fleeting moment, perhaps,

you hold the blueness of blue

the rainnness of the rain

in your heart and nowhere else

that’s where all the lines meet

that’s where the vortex between the heaven and hell opens

where the armies march where ants build

defenses moats tall buildings malls

where accelerated words collide

where feelings sprout like weeds in urban wastelands

industrial jungles tropical landscapes and far reaching farmlands

where all the worlds meet

time zones converge on flat earth

where the door opens to a room with the mirror

to show you the thirty birds of your mind

your core stripped to only what can endure

minus any image

yet only available as an image

and within this, the tension of being alive

with one foot in this world

and the other, in the next

My friend Adib Behjat composed a song called Rain to go with this poem. I am very grateful for it.

Home

2010-01-03T02:15:00.000-08:00

I will rest by the peonies heavy with water

Me heavy with infinite sleep

I will sit by the bushes ornamented with red currants

once, taken for granted,

now, forever out of reach

and within reach, in foreverness

The message they sent into the future, still not deciphered

I will revisit the land that was once ours

and now, others possess it, oblivious

of how it built “me” and perhaps how it is building them now

(we only think we shape the land, the land knows better)

I will visit the places from which I called to God

A field by Broumov

A church in Nachod

A synagogue in Trnava

A mosque in Istanbul

Connected with the cord of unity of all things or

Wahdat al-Wajud

Because

“Every land is Karbala”

And

every land is a holy land

And

every land is a war field

And

every land is a door.

(and I am grateful for it, beneath my feet

I suspect it’s a trap door that will lead me down

into the earth to mine for my own core)

In awe, I watch how it holds the successions of us,

marching down the path of time like soldiers across the plain,

like thoughts crawling like ants across the vastness of the mind

just that every once in a while

we catch a spark of eternity in someone else’s eyes

and sometimes, once upon an eon, burn down in love

I want to believe my life has been spent in exploring the darkness

and turning towards the light

Note: "Every land is Karbala" is a line from a book The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight

Blue

2009-12-31T13:53:00.001-08:00

Photo by Ariya Behjat

This poem has a story to it. It started as a collaboration with Zahra Syed over a month ago, on November 23. We exchanged a few verses, but after a while, it became clear that both of us became possessed by this poem in a way that we could not collaborate like we did with the previous ones. We got trapped by the blueness of the Blue. The poem could not exist without Zahra's words even though I wrote and rewrote it so many times since November. It could use more work and more form still, but I wanted to post it today. It's about no specific person in particular, but it deals with various losses up to this day. Loves lost and never found, distance, and longing. Maybe if I release it now, I can also leave it behind and let it go.

Zahra's version is here: Blue.

It's a strange and wonderful synchronicity that we are releasing this poem on the night of the blue moon. See picture.

This poem is dedicated to my girls Zahra, Negar, Lakshmi, Catherine, Helen, and Neshma.

BLUE

"...promising volcanic change of plot..." (Michael Stipe)

I see you where the ocean and the sky meet

my eyelids beat like sails the wind

Again

The winter sings

The summer screams

The heart beats the air

The air beats the water

Again

My heart melts where the ocean and the sky meet

I see you perfectly serene

And

I pray the words that measure time

I pray the tears that count the words

Blue

I pray for you

I pray for me

I pray out of words

Stay close to me

My heart hangs by a thread

It's barely holding onto me

It wants to leave

It may fly away

I beg it, pretty please release me

Its thread is burning down my own bare hands

It's burning down this cold cold night

And words like smoke are coming out

And words like hope are coming out

My lips are turning blue

My shadow burns with memories of you

My tongue unwinds with words that search for you

And

How can i not have hope when

The world turns sparkling blue

When the ocean shines

When the air talks of you

How can I not love you

When the moon rolls like a ball

It plants light under my feet

The forest path is indigo blue

And each step is a memory of you

My heart roams the woods

It holds to the yarn

It yearns to hold

Your moonlit face

creamy smooth soft blue

My source of peace

My source of war

My source of dreams

That don't come true

The stillness of the moment

You

The same you

As the earth turns with tears

As the heart beats in flames

My dreams are trapped in ideas of you

Blue

Let me close my eyes and

Travel to the core of you

Let me see who you really are

When the thread unravels

When it all falls down

If the heart survives all its travels

Let me invoke you

Brother

Father

Lover

Killer

My mind is veiled in illusions of you

My indigo has crimson streaks

The veins of sleep

The trails of sight

I let them lead

To the cave of dreams

I hold my breath

I reach out for your hand

Is this darkness still dark blue?

My lips are parched with memories of you

I close my eyes

I open the others

I lose my heart,

but did I find the Other?

I feel my pain

Embrace it caress it drink tea with it

I grow its tree I wait for its fruit

I stay by the tree, I cannot leave

I am a leaf taken by the wind

My feet are tied with memories of you

Paralyzed between the need to run

And the urge to fight

To look for the piece of you

To look for the remnants of my heart

To look for the pieces to look for peace

In the darkest of dark caves

In the craziest of crazy snares

My mind is bound by distance

My heart rebels

Snow falls on thought resistance

My body freezes blue with ideas of you

My shadow flames revel in you

The dissolution of the bluest of the blues

What sparks my heart now is the

The Khidr disguised in the thought of you

Note: See the meaning of Khidr

Dizzy

2009-12-30T12:18:00.000-08:00

I am a fish that is a fruit

on this Resplendent Tree

I am a fruit that is floating

on the waves of this Ancient Ocean

I am dizzy with sweetness from all directions

I do not know what voice is calling me

Is it my voice,

or is it that my voice is not mine?

If all else fails...

2009-12-24T02:17:00.001-08:00

For a Khazar Friend

You can appropriate the inappropriate

You can walk through all the shadows

that a shadowland can offer

You can walk through tunnels of the tunnel vision

You can dig deeper and darker

You can go down you can cave in

Yes

You can

But the ocean of light

Is still closer than your life vein

You can keep running against the Wailing Wall

You can crush your head smear it with blood

You can wipe it off with your hand and lick your fingers

Leave no trace

Yes you can

But,

the ocean of light...

You can go into the neighbourhoods of dark

and visit the dive bar from your dreams

that black hole in the wall

You can get sucked in

You can stay

Yes you can

But,

The ocean...

In this russian doll of existence

That smells conspicuously of onions

You can

delete the vermin

unfollow the vampires

curse the crocodiles

Count the days

But

You are faster than the time

and you are slower than the time

and you are beyond the time

and you are beyond “can” or “cannot”

Yes you can stop and stay

You can run as far as you want

But wherever you go,

you carry the ocean of light

But if its weight proves too much

If all else fails

You can always rob the devil

because you can’t steal from someone who does not exist

From someone who is within you

Someone who does not exist within you

You reach your hand into the emptiness

You grab the mystery

and

Run with it

Qiyamah

2009-11-11T20:57:00.001-08:00

In the middle of your east

Pomegranates fall like blood drops from your tree

The phoenix burns down to ashes all aching hearts

So make sure to note

You feed a great fire

Underlying all things

Chases through the mists

Cuts through all veils

Lasers through time

Comes to me

In small flickers

Now

How do I

Tune in

Zone in

Not burn out

I imagine the souls at

Yad Vashem

Sabra and Shatila

Hama

Dir Yassin

Stirring a great cauldron of light

Writing a message across the horizon of my heart

Remember

Remember to look into the dark

Embrace the monster

Never close your eyes

Let the monsters talk and

read your way

between the lines

Listen to all stories because

They converge into one river

Their words built the structure in which we live

The fire licks its walls now,

and know that

Only words made of the same substance will survive

The fire is breathing on my face

It feels like a judgment day

It could happen at any moment,

no,

Qiyamah is now

Yellow

2009-11-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

This is a fourth collaboration with Zahra Syed. I am so happy I met this sister in crime, which gives so much joy, love, and inspiration.

The shining ball under my skin

inside my chest

is a 'ticking ticking timebomb'

pieces of glass and light

three dimensions of delusion

happiness abounds

It spills over it leaks it shoots its arrows

it scares the animals away I stare them in the eye

long strong fingers gripping tightly the rope

around the wild animal's neck

long strong but sometimes weak

my jihad continues

the jihad to break on through to the other side

let the heart explode let the reason rip through the veils

with its claws to the fire that "rageth and blazeth"

under the surface of all things

Look here, into my eyes

see it?

now look away

because the one spark that I might not be able to contain

will set you ablaze

and burn you down

your arrogant head, the feet that carry you, callused fingers

and callused heart

everything

burnt down to insignificance

And then, then I will devour the ashes

Fertilize my mind

I will shake off the old skin

Dance among remnants of ashes, old skin, animal bones

Start a new fire whose flames are entwining my heart

It's under the surface of my own skin now

It's me, we are no longer apart

I dance

and let my feet guide me

for my mind and my heart are both silent

reserving a stance on the direction of my life

I dance

and let my feet etch out their own path

Naee Nazm: Green

2009-10-08T22:08:00.001-07:00

A new poem written with Zahra Syed. I love writing with Zahra, it's part conversation, and part meditation, and immensely enjoyable process. This is the flow, as it happened. No editing.

Green shadows lurk in the darkness

behind the twirling luminance of love

Green = Blue + Yellow

Blue = sadness

Yellow = light

Green = Growth

Growth = sadness + light

Equations of life?

I strive for balance, for the yellow and blue to be proportionate

Growth does come from sadness and light

Revolutions and crises: one does not exist without the other

And I am revolutionized

I have revolved around sun

I have evolved on this earth

The green that is me, the green that is me

Fall. The green turns. I fall

Parched, I lift myself up. I fall.

I fall into you

that is within me

the twirling stops

the light begins to fade

I can't talk of love now

Caught in a crusade of words

My light has entered shadows

My equations are not straightedge

I wait in the shadows

for the silence to explode

for equilibrium, for forgiveness

Cemeteries

2009-10-01T21:16:00.001-07:00

When I was a girl I used to feel
most alive in the cemeteries
They were proving my existence,

at least in the body
that could listen to the trees
and search for the spirits in their branches
I guess I walked around with a group of dead
but
“those who are dead
are not dead
they’re just living in my head”
And so, maybe they were guiding my steps

Now, I walk around
with a lamp in my hand
in search of alive beings

Note: The quote is from the song 42 by Coldplay

Red

2009-09-16T15:06:00.001-07:00

New collaboration with Zahra Syed. We took turns writing a verse each. Let me know what you think folks!

The real message is secret that people shout from the rooftops
it showers down as flowers on those who believe
maximum security prisons and children who want to learn to read
vagrant maniacs stray dogs sweet brokenhearts pause to listen
as flowers hit the ground
Looking at the world from above-a pale blue dot
fall. rise up. bleed.
It reads 'I have an urgent message for you.'
It's my blood that became magic ink and wrote it on the sidewalk: can you read?
sidewalk blood chalk. sidewalk. blood. chalk.
don't venture too deep into my neighborhood unless you're armed with love
we broken but we know a hater when we see one
we broken but we know a lover when we see one
The signs on our streets are non-linear equations
written in the language of God
but for God's sake don't hit them with a calculator
I'm stumped by the calculus of life
the womb, the world, the womb
This world is a womb,
we come to into it bloody
we emerge bloody
We paint the town red

red. scare. red
red
the physician, the lawyer, the priest
scare
the poet, the man of science
red
paid wage laborers

scare
is that a red alert we are on?

the terror of bursting hearts?
of seas of blood spread apart
new order exploding out of your mind?

Like I said before, neural renewal
I lie on the scanner bed, the light passing over me
Lovingly he takes my hand and nails it to the wall.
burnt and truncated. burnt. and truncated.

But what was chiseled from you is that
which must flow down the river
float in the air
leave let that leaf float let it go

....

2009-09-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

Written with Zahra Syed. It was her idea. We took turns, writing a verse each, and sending it to the other via email. She started and finished... I love her verses. I feel mine are just echos to her voice.

With unsteady hands I count change out of my change bowl
But what if I am the change, and there is a treasure inside me?
I delve into myself to find the treasure, swimming far into the emptiness.
I have all but lost hope when I swim into you
I swim in labyrinths, I stare into the eyes of sharks, I swallow leviathans
The emptiness in me feeds me
I pick my brain with a needle, unraveling the labyrinths therein
neural renewal

Injects my brain with its own kind of spring

Jump into the Unknown

I want to build with you, a magnetic that will last until Qiyamah

Build with my own hands, with my blood, with my sweat, with my cells

Tearing pieces off my heart and pinning them to trees so I could find my way back
Tearing down to build up. Tearing down to build up

The Last Time...

2009-09-08T23:34:00.000-07:00

Even the crushing waves will flow

The crushing waves of time drilling holes through my body

The crushing waves of you

The swarming whirls of my thoughts

They sting right at the heart

Some warmth of tea

Condensation on my window in the middle of winter

We probably won't sit in a coffee house again

But my mind is on a leash

It is not allowed to go there,

and so it strangles itself.

When I saw you last,

You were sitting on a train and your face was ashen

It faded into that dim lit station, pain of so many people condensed

But your white T-shirt still shone

Like a white flag that was

so desperately flapping in my heart.

PS: My tears wrote this. The real message is secret.

The Call of the Black Standard

2009-08-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

Amnesty International reported that the seven prisoners are held in Tehran’s Evin prison....

“O Son of Spirit!

The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice....By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes...”

What did you sell your eyes for you ayatollahs?

The hands with which you extinguish our lives

have also put the lights out from your very own souls

You commit your deeds in darkness,

not knowing you are the darkness

I see the picture of the seven, a group photo in their finest clothes

(they don't look like that anymore)

Two women

Five men

Light blue jacket. Spectacles.One of them has sparkle in her eyes,

Maybe someone just cracked a joke

“Let your heart burn with loving kindness”

I would like them to be my uncles and aunts, parents even

Call them up in the middle of the night and strike a conversation

(a personality evaluation proposed by Holden Caufield)

Have a sohbet perhaps, as described by Rumi

But there is no time now for such luxuries

I worry about you my friends

Breaking your fast at dawn with tea and leftovers from dinner

without your prayer books, the strongest weapons

And my struggle comes out in a few barely adequate words

Wake up you ayatollahs, jihad was abolished by a Youth of Ancient Beauty

It’s time to go home and take a shower: first step towards purification

I say Stop! No more!

No matter how many graves you destroy, the soul is an indivisible essence!

The stones of the deserts talk about your ignominy

Your time, you idiots, would be better spent

shopping in the mall or playing soccer

I do have a long way to walk away from anger

I take that red hot coal, it burns

Reminder:

The war today is waged with pure deeds and diamond character

That jewel that takes a lifetime to polish

We use it to set our actions free

on their own paths, across manifold futures,

and call

O concourse of spirits and men

Do not extinguish your light

“Do not go willingly into that big night”

Do not extinguish your light

Notes:

I wrote this poem back in March - finally got the courage to post it. The trial is scheduled for August 18 (and there is a rumor it's actually supposed to be tomorrow) - not sure.
The black standard features in the prophecies of Islam – the promised one is supposed to hoist it in battle.
The first quote in italics is by Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í faith
The second quote is by Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh
Sohbet is a word in Farsi that, loosely translated, means a discourse on spiritual and mystical matters
The third quote in italics is by the Báb, a founder of the Bábí religion, the goal of which was to prepare the way for the advent of Bahá’u’lláh
The last four lines in the poem are variation on the lines by Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light." from a poem "Do not go gentle into that good night"
The seven prisoners are still held in prison without access to their lawyer, Shirin Ebbadi: http://iran.bahai.us/

Give Me Silence

2009-08-15T01:18:00.001-07:00

Inspired by the 15 Minutes of Silence at the Vigil for Neda

We weave the words like strings
Like umbilical cords connecting us to spring of life
to comfort
Away from strife away from maddening crowd
We weld the words like shields
What are these words
They are not lies, but are they truth
If they're used to disguise?
We have cast calligraphy curtains like lace
We have clothed our hearts in elaborate cloaks

How can we find them
Under so many veils
Connect them across parallel universes

When they're Almost buried
"no sleep under so many lids"
and under so many veils, in their cores, emptiness
and there,

Find me silence, I will follow it
Liked Pied Piper
To that space, where there is no space
Where you hear the sounds
of wind portending winter
of leaves like the crunching snow
of trams one night in Prague
of candlelight
(can you imagine that sound?)

Where it is so cold
like beyond stratosphere cold
where there is Nobody,
but where you can sense connection
in the same way a blind person
imagines light

Our Flesh

2009-08-14T10:47:00.001-07:00

Our flesh was pink and soft and gentle
Our blood was warm, it ran its course
Now our skin screams with million of voices
For what you have done
Our bodies were made for a caress
of warm breeze on a summer night
during a stroll on Azadi square
But now these streets see different signs
The clothes are scattered on the ground
And instead of clothes, our nakedness is covered by the wounds
How can you ever imagine an axe eating your own body
This is not a Hollywood movie
This is me, but this is not my life
The pain oozing from my body is a thread
To the crowds running through grey streets
I think the earth is spitting sand, conjuring veils of dust
in shame at these iniquities
But still the pain is oozing from my very own body
from every single onlooker, from computer screens
and squeezing my very soul out
It needs to get out!
“We must turn this culture inside out”
said Rumi
But he did not mean the gut
Our prison has grown too small
It needs to burst; we need to fly out
Still our incomprehensible flesh fits so perfectly into this world
It sticks, it does not understand departure
It wants to stay a little longer, it wants to feel one more kiss
It touches, it attracts, it can be morphed into anything
and when the clothes are torn off by the vultures
and its nakedness stares into the mirror of reality
We ask, who wrote these folds, who carved these wrinkles,
who sprinkled these spots
The hand of transience has played with our colors
But still its touch was a simple caress
Now our cells speak a new language
That we did not know we had
New kinds of pain, new tunnels of suffering shutting off the brain
Who knew bodies could collapse and fall apart, outside of TV screens
Who knows how blood flows, so fast and bright
We will never see red the same again
We will think all those movies stupid
We will try to recollect how was it before the missing pieces
of me and you of us
Before our minds turned into shattered glass,
still flashes of brilliance, but flickering light
But regardless we need to fight
Remember we are still here, we are still alive
It’s just that the wolves gnawed at our hearts
They drank our blood
But we spit them out

Hey Tyrant

2009-07-17T02:11:00.001-07:00

The earth is angry it spits sand at you
It twists its thumbs before it squeezes you like a locust
That one fly, do not be mistaken,
was an augury of your punishment
You pollute this nether world, but you are bound to it
on a tight leash
You will not escape
Your days are numbered
And even if only God knows this number,
We know it’s NOT infinity.

untitled so far...

2009-07-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

My poems are tweets, they have speedy feet
Now they're here Now they're not
Words will be forgotten faster than the feeling
And you see this world is burning it is reeling
The brain is searching for words
for MUNIcipal transportation with
verbal aMUNItion
How can you disarm the basij with your beauty
when it is beauty that they fear and so they shoot it?
Forget the universal health rule
Today we all touch the blood
Then let us transmute it into light
And the ones who don't will drown
For them the direction points straight
down down down
This nether world is their only habitation
The darkest slums of hell their surest destination
And whilst the anger still shoots through my pen
Let me search for my roots and for my life vein
And check if my heart is still beating fast
For this world as we know it really will not last
And while my experience is quite clearly fleeting
I will continue to shout
DO NOT ABANDON THE LIGHT

RIP Delara Darabi (September 1986 - May 2009)

2009-07-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

On that morning, CNN was worried about the attendance of proms due to swine flu....
BBC, Al Jazeera were silent
But the midnight before the most people did not even notice that
the earth stood still and speechless
before breaking down to clamor and inconsolable weeping

For what happened in the Rasht prison
Where
a youth
woman
artist
was hanged
for no reason
but hate

I wonder if she received my postcard,
but probably some monstrous shadow chucked it in the thrash
with lunch leftovers thinking
“Naive dogs Americans”

I decided not to use my photo of colored pens
to make that postcard
For they took away her paints and brushes
and called her the prisoner of colors
I thought the card might punch her heart

But now it is me who needs
heart to heart transfusion

I heard her guardian,
her soul sister angel
weeping into the night
but even as her cries reverberated
across the universe
the world wide web
could not catch Delara Darabi
as she dropped down into the gaping void
of our inhumanity

RIP Neda

2009-06-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 20th, 2009
You have left the tyrants of this world behind, Neda,
but we hear your voice
They shot at your heart, but their claws will never rip it out
Today you donated your blood,
so that freedom lives
and now we carry it in our veins, Neda
It won't be washed off from the streets
(not even by our tears)
It won't be forgotten, Neda
As this is a different path

You have reached the Placeless now,
Perhaps you met your sisters there,
that the vultures thought they could also kill:
Delara Darabi, Mona, Zaynab, the mainden of Zanjan....
This is the true Iran
The women of your land have a different kind of glory,
and it will dawn soon, and shed its light on its villages and cities

Your blood is singing Neda,
As we bow down to your sacrifice
We light a candle, and we know
The blood that was spilled will be transmuted into joy of the land of Ta
Your cries from the rooftops at midnight into light
God sees you Neda, and you see Her now
Please ask Her to burn down our fears

And you, ayatollah, stop raping your people
Look Neda in the eyes
And look closely, ayatollah,
for God is manifest in them
And now, will you tell Her She is a vagrant?
Nah, it is you, stray dog, demon from this nether world,
feeding on blood and human remains
You shut down your door to God
by shooting Neda

And you Neda, please do not forget us
And breathe your cosmic breath
as a blessing on our efforts
We remember
Your blood is the voice
Agitating our veins now.

...

2007-03-07T21:02:00.000-08:00

i shed a million of visions
i don't know what waters flow through me
yet there are still deserts, vast

~~~

2007-03-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

migrating birds
follow the horizon
traces in the sand

...

2006-12-02T23:39:00.000-08:00

I flew against the jet stream
My face was scorched, my hair was burnt
I rushed into the sun.
I weaved my prayer across many horizons
They stayed put.
I diverted several rivers with my bare hands
My knuckles are still bleeding.
Finally, I was forced to admit before God
I am powerless.

dusty road

2005-12-02T22:26:00.000-08:00

our dusty possessions, who will recover them later
others will possess them, others will look at them with their own eyes
our bodies are not going to be ours
never were, never will, forever transient, ever changing
- maybe your cells are made out of mine and vice versa
if we spend enough time in one location
do our meetings count?
we are one, aren't we now?

our dusty possessions recede from us.
your books. my computer. my car. your car. they do not belong to us,
and so does nothing.
i look into the mirror and see nothing.
i look around me and see nothing.
i look inside me and see you.
and then i see Him, in you.

again & again

2005-10-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

It is autumn again and I see the light.
I see the devils dancing around the fire, swinging their pitchforks,
Heating the blades, swallowing the hearts, blood dripping from their mouths
I sit by the fire.
I see the witches tearing at my flesh, I feel their teeth biting deep,
I feel their claws in my brain, ripping it apart; blood dripping from their mouths
I become the fire
The heart, the brain are no longer there. Their shreds, their blood sunk into the soil,
and it feels like it has rained. The world is new again.
Had I known this before, I would have cherished the pain

Lost

2005-07-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

I smeared a tear on the Wailing Wall
Then I felt cushioned
and forgot it all

Destroyer of Souls

2005-06-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

wind blows
wind blows away the people

wind blows
wind blows away the thoughts

wind blows
wind blows away the mind

there is nothing, no one around
Now, where can my soul be found?

love... an old poem dating to February

2005-05-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

Love, the word freezes at my lips, Love
leaves my mouth dry, Love
fills it with rose petal pot pouri, Love
that i breathe, and the breath emanates
as mist, and shrouds everything in a hazy gown
and then i feel the snow crunching under my feet.

Love, golden, liquid, and warm, Love
the unknowable, the elusive veil, Love
that explodes within, Love
that i cannot grasp, Love
that passes me by quietly as a train
through the night across a prairie
ferrying coal to warm someone else's home

Love, that One beyond, Love
the madness whose prerequisite is sanity, Love
that plays music from an open window, Love
that makes snow flakes fall fall fall
and dress my face in their caresses, Love
forms an exquisite lace,
that disappears, but leaves a trace
Love

***

2005-01-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

the world is crying today
still the sun unnoticed
illumines the way

how

2005-01-06T22:22:00.000-08:00

i saw a fish crawling on the wall
i thought
what has the world come to
i felt like a drenched hoopoe
six feet under ground
how can i say
life is perfect now?

something like haiku #2

2004-12-02T01:18:00.000-08:00

you engage with the world
the world does not engage with you
just as well

something like haiku

2004-11-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

you engage with the world
the world engages with you
it's all good

today

2004-11-21T03:53:00.000-08:00

today i look the world squarely in the eye
i shake my fist
i say
surprise me
if you can do anything for me
then surprise me
seriously
i know i am asking for trouble
but better trouble
then nothing

a handshake, of sorts

2004-11-16T19:27:00.000-08:00

Today, I extend my hand to the world

I tell it:

You piss me off, for sure,
I was going to pack your bags
To roll the curtains
Clear the stage
And ship you off
I was going to return you without a credit
I was going to turn my back on you
And ignore you as long as I can
But I give you another chance

However
I am not going to run back to you
Or wait forever
I am going to observe you and
Engage you in conversation
I believe there is a lot to talk about

The world looks back
It smiles
It says
Perhaps
Perhaps
Perhaps

We are in love again

a ditty of sorts

2004-11-14T14:49:00.000-08:00

To be somebody’s beautiful wife
Parading her third trimester in the pool
Her golden tresses her smooth body
The guy the car and be oh so cool

Alas
You think I’m tough and my tongue is my sword
But seriously
My heart is the punch bag of this world.

in search of blood

2004-11-13T01:02:00.000-08:00

Today, I am wondering whose blood flows in my veins
If offspring can be adopted, then so can be the roots
I am wondering who my parents are and I choose
I traded them many times before, and I don't think it's over
I think a part of me has wondered streets of Jerusalem on a summer night
And heard cries of newborn babies
I think a part of me visited Safed once, and watered a tree there with
her own blood
There is something to a sunrise in Trnava, perceived in synagogue ruins
I am searching for clues
I am hearing a little brother exclaiming the sparks of conviction:
You need to be raised from the dead, and perhaps I can do it for you.
There is no restriction.
He rides on a fast horse, and carries chains around his neck.
i walked before sunrise and after sunset though far too many cities
Who do I choose to hold my hand, and why are they all dead?
Angels, Rilke says, have trouble making that distinction.
Given other accounts, they also see in black and white
Can I have their blood?

in search of Beloved

2004-11-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

I am searching for the Beloved in the dust
I guess I see Him in the wing of the fly,
I see Him right there in the cobwebs that entrap me
I see Him in the rotten leaves, and right there in the garbage by the road.
He is everywhere.
I am looking for meat and I am finding breadcrumbs.
But we know that breadcrumbs can lead home.
And perhaps at home there is a pantry.
In the dust I read footsteps of Tahirih, and wonder if she would be
my sister.
What would she tell me as of today, as of now.
Would the scent of her hair brush over me just a little bit?
And can she hold my hand right across the realms?
I think she must have been a total pain to a lot of people,
In the same way like sun is when you don't wear sunscreen on the beach.
And it will blind you when you look it in the eye.
I walk door to door in her footsteps.
The moments are the doors.
Her footsteps are barely traceable now through my veils.
She unveiled herself.
My unveiling awaits.

2 blogs are not enough.

2004-11-12T23:56:00.000-08:00

At the advice of the Dreamhunter, i am starting a blog for my literary works. OK. for my literary attempts. Ok. this is Daniela's literary sandbox, which is entered at your own hazard, and where lifeguard is never on duty. parental advisory may apply at times.