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Monday, February 28, 2011

silence

The shadow of your shadow
chases the words from my mouth
and scatters the thoughts from my mind like dust.

To gaze upon your face
can only be likened to staring into the sun
or the darkest depths of a starless night.

How can something be both lock and key?
How can that which is veiled be unveiled
when I am myself but a veil?

The faster I move
the faster these footprints catch up to me.
The more I learn, the less I know.
I have nothing to say which hasn't been said before.
I just want to graze in that meadow Rumi speaks of:
when the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

reminiscence

Jul 09 entry:

Every illusion of control
every semblance and comforting lie
of independence
was for me to realize
the underlying interdependence.

Every fall and rise in the song of my life
every curve and bend along this winding road
told ultimately of my return to you.
Every betrayal and loss of faith
every bloody tear shed
in the unwritten pages of the heart
was for me to know this way.
I see only so much beauty around me
and I am ashamed for ever seeing it as anything but.

the veiled beloved

I told her
these words are yours
so too the voice that speaks them
the tongue that sharpens them
my lips, diving board of every kiss, are yours
 the curve of this spine, the hollow in my throat
the spaces between my fingers, every line on my palms
the calluses on my hands and feet are yours
so too the soft skin beneath.
The stories of my stitches and the poetry of these scars
are yours, so too this borrowed heart.

Every living hair on my body remembers your touch.

 For each tear you lent me, I cried another in joy.
Every crease around my eyes, every furrow in my brow
tries to tattoo your name in Persian calligraphy.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

a bleeding chalkboard

Oh but for you
I would be lost amongst the voices
of the crowd inside me.
But for you
I don't know what tongue I'd speak
or which sun I'd seek.
Something of your echo struck a chord
and now that music is all I want to hear.

*

As soon as I heard the opening lines of your tale
I was beside myself in grief
watching my body weeping out my own voice
so that I could hear yours better.


If my heart were a chalkboard
from corner to corner it would be filled
with broken vows like "yesterday"
and empty promises like "tomorrow"
next life, next never.

If my heart were a chalkboard
you wouldn't be able to see
whether I was green, black or blue beneath.
Every inch would be rewritten over and over
so full that the empty spaces would have long ago gone bankrupt
so full that each letter could be everything from an A to a Z
each symbol and word representing anything to its opposite.

If my heart were a chalkboard
through some magical alchemy
tears would clear slivers of unwritten space
and leave trails of unspoken truth
as they wash out layers of old words
old wounds and chalk scars.

***

And so I listen for your voice
at the birth, betrayal
death and rebirth
of every love affair
ever told
every saga and epic
every tale of the heart
that made it to word
in the the hope of hearing
that one wordless love story
that draws me to all these words.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Echoes

I hear your name whispered
and everything slows down
not to a full halt, but close
like a thrumming vibration
or flickering fluorescent light
and the only thing holding me together
is the reverberation of your name
within my hollow spaces.
I can't think of anything else to do
but carry this refractured echo
the memory of your name;
to wear it like a scar
open, untold
but not unseen.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Revolution

Intro
http://alialikhani.blogspot.com/2012/01/revolution-intro.html

***

flash forward 25 years, it is the summer of 2009
and I am in Tehran, protesting the results of a stolen election.
In between all the batons, stones and tear gas
I find myself following the footsteps of my parents
playing Russian roulette with the hint of another revolution.
and I'm fired up by all this talk of something greater than myself.
I want to be a part of this revolution! Hell I want to start a revolution! I'll burn down flags and dissolve differences with my words! I'll load these words like weapons and bring systems down to their knees.
Kneel knave kneel!!

But wait a moment...something's not right.
I've been here before...

These bloody words are not mine, they've been said before me. Revolutions come and go. Power switches hands like a juggler keeps an audience in check. Thirty years ago, the generation before me ousted a corrupt monarchy supported by the powers that be. They took to the streets and threw their bare bodies in front of tanks, and corn poppies littered the asphalt, painting it crimson.
And for what?! For a loaded word like freedom?!
You want to see the result of violent revolution? Look no further than my country Iran!

Watch as the Shah, the mullah dictator, and the powers that supplant them one day and support them another--get to die of old age in their gold beds. While a mother bleeds out her heart through her eyes as she outlives her children...because they fell victim to the rhetoric of someone who believes himself righteous enough to order others into battle but won't take up arms himself.

No.
This isn't what I want.

What I really want...is that inner revolution. I want that revolution against my own ego.
I don't care for systems and power-mad politicians, they're always the same though they change names and faces. I want to be an activist to myself and against it. I want to tackle my inner self, ambush it! Light it on fire and let it burn itself out.

Every time it says "I'm better than him or her!" I want to do to it everything the revolutionary would do to the powerful and corrupt. Every time it raises its head and claims "I deserve more!" I want to strike it down like the revolutionary lashes out at inequality.
Every time it tucks tail in fear, I want to break it like the poet breaks swords with his words.

What I really want...is that inner revolution. Because even if all the inequalities of the world were to disappear tomorrow, I would still be found gagged and blindfolded, hands and feet bound through the chains of my own ego.

emptiness

I want to let my imagination out from those dark little corners it gets confined within so it may roam free. I want it to get a taste of sunlight and come dashing out like the wind; free, unfettered, broken loose.
I walk this world through my mind. When I step on sunshine, on a bed of jewels, or walk through a goldmine, if someone else is at the helm of this ship or if I've filled my storage with so many idols, then I will see neither sunshine nor jewels nor goldmine.
I pray for an empty storage, so that I may walk this world through a mind free and unhindered...so when the day rains down gold on me and the night casts out her jewels, I may see them for what they are.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

ambience

This world I may open my eyes to
tomorrow is the cradle of form.
Image is some sort of deity here

but the world between my eyes
the inner one of the heart
is the fountainhead of meaning.

My love for this which I can't describe-
nor want to, is what keeps me up at night.

All I know is that when you come around
words are no longer words
I am no longer me

sight is no longer seeing
and opposites meet like lovers
between random sheets in sleeping streets.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Usyurme

I want to write poetry without words.
I want to stop seeing in black and white
I want to crack words open
for the kernels within.
I want to break them all
because you're not in words
maybe I can find you
among scattered letters.
Maybe, if I write you
on every fall leaf in October
or if I leave you bread and tears
during my breathless nights
and nocturnal affaires-de coeur
I will be left with just the thought of you

Friday, February 4, 2011

Sunday Afternoon

When there was a match or game on tv
he'd hum and grunt the rest of the world away.

He used the play the game, until he broke his arm
he used to wrestle too, until he broke the other.

He had these hands that split apart fruit like a knife
the scent of garlic bled from his finger trails
and his breath often smelled of apples and oranges.

He dropped out of school
for a revolution in his homeland
and even there he cooked.

When he'd sing, I'd pretend I wasn't listening
so his voice would carry on
it rose from his throat
like a sushi roll of emotive flavors.

Food was his gift to the world, he wore burns
on his arms like a woman wears bangles.

I'd watch him handle steaming plates and pans
like an athlete hones an impossible deke
or a wrestler perfects a single leg take down.