the alchemy of tears and dreams

Some days I leave these pages blank
but when I hear the passage of seasons
whispering of setting suns
and I remember that I have
only this moment
then I am so overwhelmed
with what I have to say
that I can speak only in tears.
I live to turn these tears to words
to give them expression.
I am a drop, a trickle
a splash in a stream
singing in praise of the sea.

the walk home

I land on the middle of my feet
gripping the dew drenched grass
with toes bent, tendons taut.
Heels drive downward
clenching at the knee, calves
quads and glutes flexing and firing off.
Every step is a surging thrust
as my hips work furious, legs a flash.

The overnight moisture on the green stretch
kisses the dirt off my bare feet.
The odd protest of a thorned bramble
is crushed beneath the callouses of my soles.
One arm holds firm a laptop bag
strapped and creaking to my right
as the other pumps piston-like
reaching forward and stroking back
with the blade of an open hand
as though through water.

The dress pants rolled up over my ankles
whisper swish swish, faster and faster
as the terrain changes
and thirsty asphalt soaks up
the damp memory of my footprints
left behind like nostalgic notes of a former lover.
My heart beats on a countdown
ticking faster and faster
like a caged bird fluttering its wings
maddened by whispered promises of freedom
in the taste of distant winds.

For an instant, I see the card board cut out
of a passenger on a bus driving by.
I barely notice
weaving in and out of dark shadows
cast by the overflowing fullness of the moon
peering like a pale Apollo through a rippled film of cloud.
As the moon's pocked and pitted face
reflects the terrible serenity of the sun's rays
so too is a refraction of that light
glimpsed upon the mirror of the clouds
and as they catch the Sun's gaze
the whole mass-like threadbare cotton
bursts through with pearls of color
perforated with metallic hues of purples and blues
like a dark rainbow iris around the moon's dilated pupil.

Mirror upon mirror
the sun gazes upon the moon
the clouds gaze upon the earth
each deafening in their promises to one another.
As I hurtle toward the silence
trying to outrun the echo of old oaths

***

to be cont'd

Watch me

The hairs on my body start to rise
as I feel at first what can only be described
as a low thrumming vibration
and then a discernible rush of blood
to my head, chest and hands.
Face heating, eyes blurring
the muscles in my scalp contract
my whole body stands on end
and I feel like the Universe is watching me.
The night sky bares Her soul,
and between the stars
I see the questioning arch of Her brow
the unflinching mirror of Her gaze
both whispering a challenge
saying:

Show me! 
Let me taste the breath from your breast! Let me see what lies inside your chest!
Is that a heart on a countdown, less alive with every beat?
Or a ticking time bomb--waiting to go off and burst through the prison of your shell and explode out through your lips, hands, and feet--every time you hear a sound that reminds you that you are alive?!
and I whisper back
"...Watch me"

Break your vows of love

If your eyes say yes
I will become less and less until I disappear from myself
I will die to myself and that broken basement of regrets.

If your eyes say yes
I will tear my heart out my chest
I will forfeit my king-piece in this cosmic game of chess
I will love them no less that you have left me so blessed
And before I return this body's lease, I will ask for wings from my dreams
To fly my soul to that final destination before death takes me there senseless

If Your eyes only say yes
The four cardinal directions I will bend
Until the past of the East merges with future of the West

If Your eyes only say yes
I will cut out the pattern of the constellations on my breast
Until the stars themselves in my hollow spaces coalesce.
I will go back in time to assassinate the past and pre-emptively kill the future
So there will be nothing but the present left.
I will trample Time and stamp on Space's head.

If Your eyes only say yes
All of this, one day, one day, I will contest
Because today I am compelled to confess
That it is only Man who can leave himself dispossessed
From that which even the stars haven't been blessed.

You see, Love and choice were never made for the mountains, oceans or heavens
Love and choice were never made for even the angels to invest.

...But tell me, truly, dear wonder of the universe:
How can something borrowed love another like itself?

I am a temporary flux--the smallest vibration of a red blood cell
Coursing through the human veins of god.
Everything about me is conditional!
I did not say "Be!" and simply decide to exist.
My every moment is borrowed
Even the intangible between my heart and mind are on lease to me.

How can I make any of these borrowed parts the object of undying Love?
How can I make a vow of Love under the temporary roof of this halfway home?

Are you beginning to see why the ultimate goal of our Love cannot be one another?
We are borrowed beings and we owe ourselves to Life.
We are receptacles for Her blessings.
All of us, in all our differences are Her children.

So you see, I can not give you my heart
It is not mine to give away, and neither can I accept yours
Because our hearts--those mirrors of light
Ultimately only belong to the source of all Light.

Come, throw off those chains around your ribcage
Stop making a gift of your alchemist's stone
To the Earth's passing travelers.
Come, unveil your heart
For a jewel is still a jewel
Even if it is wrapped in the rags of mortality
And auctioned in the marketplace of yesterday's desires and tomorrow's demands.
Come! let us leave this throng of clinging hands!

Let us burn through the frozen shores of our half-loves
And sail past this bay of endings forever born!
Let us stay up all night just to tell the Dawn
That we remember our birth among the stars!
With hearts broken open, let us turn to the sky
And reflect those rays until we flood over with light
So that we just might be like the Sun for one another
Even if it is just for one moment.

untitled

I could stand here
and tell you everything about myself
I could tell you
that I am a child of the revolution.
That I have lived
through both religious and material ideology.
That I was born on the longest night of the year
and that to this day
I spend almost every hour of the night awake.
I could tell you
what keeps me up at night.
We could talk of love stories
that put the ink on paper to shame.
I could tell you how the night
is secretly an alchemist
how She turns my tears
into pearls of laughter.
But how will you really know
what drives me?
Or what lies at the heart of my heart?

We see the world as we are

and so I ask
Where is one who has the being, the presence
to see beyond their self? 
Where is one who can close his/her eyes
and see things as they are?
Where are those remnants of stardust, shining
and watching the sea of the universe
without so much as a judging glance or lingering gaze?

confessions p. 11

I don't come to these pages
to write poetry, or any such thing.
And yet, sometimes my words
seem so strange and familiar to myself
in a way only a poem could describe.
I come back to this pen and paper
to reclaim my sanity
which is itself an act of insanity
in the confines of this language.
In reality, I come back to discover a new language
so I can go out and use it in the world.
I come back
through the late hours of the night
bouncing thoughts off the wall facing me
building up the muster to ask
what I am too afraid or busy to ask during the day
and in the company of others.
Sometimes I am transported by a flitting face
in a wave of memory. Sometimes
I see the spiderwebs of my intentions.
Some nights my heartstrings are unloosened
others, they are fine tuned
for the impossible harmony of beauty.
The night is always my confidante.
She is the keeper of my hearts' secrets.
She is my unforgiving mirror.
She knows my words so well
I can only speak to her in haiku poetry.
I whisper to her, yell at myself
and sometimes she reminds me to laugh
and I do, until the sky shakes
and the stars become blurred streaks.

Blessed

I am a mere passerby
I can pack my life in a bag
and hit the road with a bit of money
and a ready supply of smiles.
I am blessed by the gift and generosity of a sister
by the strength of character of a father
who is also a great story teller
and by the love of a mother
at whose feet lie the doorway
to the only heaven I will know.
I am a wayfaring stranger
a witness, and a recipient.
I am blessed by the ability
to see with my heart.
I am blessed to witness
this sea of being and becoming.
Though I am but the smallest detail
in a tapestry far too intricate for words
I am blessed by the ability to create
instill, and interpret meaning.
And though I am but the creation
of forces and influences
far beyond my understanding
I am blessed
by the ability to think
reflect and make manifest.

I am from a lost generation

I am from a generation of Iranian youth
Jaded from revolutions
And the iron fist of religious rule
In between homes
With no real place to call our own

And I am from a generation of Canadian youth
Jaded from the sugar coated fist of economic rule
With an attention span you could measure
Between instant messaging alerts
And no time for politics

We are from generations
Cut off from the past
In our thirst for the present
We no longer know anything absolutely
We no longer know art if it's right in our face

The revolution [in Iran] only broke the backs of youth
So their bones could support the seats
Of those who scrambled for power

The establishment collapsed

Only to give birth to one more evolved and ruthless

The commodities merely left us wanting more

Disconnected from one another
And the world around us
And the pornographic implosion of images
Only removed us from the very reality
They simulated in the first place

I am from a generation that has witnessed
The commodification of everything
Jaded from images and political ideologies
The pieces of our identity
The intangible within us
The mysteries of the heart
And what makes us alive
Have all been packaged and labeled
On an assembly line, ready for exchange

How can anything take the place of a heart?
How can anyone put a value to life?
Let alone package and trade it?
In this marketplace, everything gets sold
Authenticity, meaning, Gods, our very selves
Even the future lent to us by the next generation

We are from a lost generation
Deaf to any ideology but that of the heart
And in our being lost lies our greatest potential
Because who knows what boundaries of the unknown
We can test together or how far we can go
When the box of the known world
Is just not enough for us any longer?

Clavinova by Yamaha

It is a Tuesday afternoon
she appears decked in black and white.
Soon she is everyone’s sweetheart.

He wants nothing to do with her
curls his lip and grits at her poise
and how she always gets checked out

but secretly, he can not stop
hearing the music in her voice.
A seed is growing inside him.

She takes in his stares, fantasies:
flurry of hands pounding her frame
fumbling furiously for the keys
to release her cry of pleasure.

And one night, he can not take it
he storms out in his underwear
to submit her to those cries
break her silence with hard fingers
and force himself on her, over, and over 
until she sings those notes for him.

Why I write

I write
to make a triangle out of the line
from thought to action.
I write
to use words as whetstones
for the sword of action.
I write knowing the limits
of the word, knowing that thought leads to speech
which in turn leads to action, or inaction
and I write to remind myself that I can act.
*
I write
because of the serene movement of clouds
I write
because I hear a song in the whispers
of grassblades against the breeze,
a symphony in every storm,
the purest melody in the flow of water,
and because I hear those same songs
in the beating of a heart.
I write because I saw a leaf
hold itself with the same poise
through rain or shine
until the silent dance of its death.
I write
to grant shadows to my tears.
I write
because I am bewildered.

I write

because there is something in me 

that is in everything else.

I write
because I saw the thinnest sliver of light
and through that glimmer I saw only blinding beauty.
I write
because my mouth has a broken way with words.
I write
because I know the darkness of the unknown
to be beautiful beyond imagining.
I write
to remind myself of the divinity behind the universe,
I write
in gratitude to the Source, the One, the Unnameable
that (life-)guiding force that bought me here
and makes every moment possible.
I write
because the images in my heart demand expression.
I write
because tears are not enough
for the flood I feel within my chest.
I write
in the hope that these words,
watered with enough tears
will one day grow into a tree.

I write

in preparation for the day

when neither words nor tears are of avail.

and I write
to remember that this--moment--is really it.
I write
to establish my kinship to the stars.
I write
as testament to the Water of Life.
and to trace my way back to the same
cradle from which I sprung to life.

a night of power

Tonight
is a night of power.
Tonight I feel that familiar torrent
like a forgotten mountain behind mist
like the tectonic tremble of the earth
before she spews forth her fire.
Tonight, my blood boils in seething calm
my resolve, the flight of a falcon
an extended talon, the curl of razor beak.
Tonight is a night of power
and I have been made to feel this way
and there is no reason to ignore this flame.
Where I'm going, I will need
everyone I've ever been
where I'm going, I will need
everything I am capable of.
So come out from your long sleep!
Revel in this night of power!
Remember your oaths on this night.
Remember your shaking fingers
against this flood within your chest.
For what is your gentleness without severity?

For you

For you
I will open my heart again
and again like a rose in bloom
and I will sing your song as I watch
the petals of my heart wither and fall
to the trample of feet and seasons.
Sometimes, I see a reflection of you
in the faces of this crowd
in a crest of these waves.
Before such reflections I gladly bend knee
tear open my shirt and place the dagger
in their hands before my naked breast.
For you
I would drink the poison of a thousand heartbreaks
each one bringing me closer to you
because none of them are you.
I would laugh through the tears
as I sing out your song louder and louder
every time the world turns its back on me.