Another Night

Outside the library some dogs in suits
were chasing nimbly after Pokemons
Inside a charming Persian cat was caught
on hidden cameras stealing a mouse
I don't recall my other dreams at five
Whose hands are these that wring this drenched pillow?
I still do try each night only in vain
with sapphire pills to put to sleep this self
Despite it all the morning stiffly comes
its sunny gong and birds chirping the time

Sky Ghazal

I saw my lover's face in light at dawn
The sky's visage in candlelight at dawn

Sky's face dyed with streaks of rose and lemon
As though a bursting dynamite at dawn

I wish I could reach up and touch the sky
Just like a rising delta kite at dawn

If I could breathe in the sky's scent up close
How I envy the birds in flight at dawn

My love for sky's sweet face keeps on burning
Yet all Arash can do is write at dawn

Confessions of a Survivor

They say that shame is a global judgment
On the bad self which devalued now shrinks,
Or wishing to at least hide from the eyes,
Powerless to veil its bared worthlessness.
Thus shame's debilitating beyond words,
While guilt's a judgment on actions only;
Discomfort thus much easier to bear,
The good self freed should it choose to repent,
Sacrifice, pay the cost, repair the harm....
Oh how foolishly assuring must be
To make distinctions in his fancy ink
For one whose boiling blood is a bright red,
Not curdling darkness lurching forth blindly,
Unconsciously circling, somehow feeding
Mindless machinery and all aiming
To keep alive this thinking squishy thing
Where souls in solitary confinement
Ask why me and not him, why him not me?
Why this and not that, why now and not then?
Why breathe this air and take up this space-time
When each single hour the lives of all kind
End mid-breath without a reason or rhyme?
Oh what do scientists in lab coats know,
What do therapists, what do preachers know....
What does anybody know about survival guilt!
When they all know nothing in the first place
Of why they're born and living anyway.
Only the criminals must feel guilty,
Or they should, they say, but nobody else.
How easy it must be if you fear no
Punishment for living your random lives.
How many cold dead hands are caressing your thick throat?

Funeral

Long ago at your old friend's funeral
Outside through a soft snow flurry I saw
Your flawlessly fine face faintly aglow
Your arms full of the fairest fresh flowers
Your gloved fists and your gorgeous gloomy eyes
Braving the ghoulish cold getting ready
To bury a very scary fairy
Tale of love that's wild and willful and wrong
This wilted willow has wasted away
For too long so here I watch you and wait

Moon and I

For years I stayed awake for you my flame,
So we could play a game of hide and seek.
Behind the clouds I'd see you slowly peek,
And spotting you I'd laugh and cry your name.
And so each day you left and night you came.
Till once I saw a thing that made me weak;
I've since refused to play with you or speak,
Though now I know I've but myself to blame:
The pearly glow I thought was bold desire
To join your light together with my hell,
Was just your lover's, sun's, reflected lust;
I'd thus mistook the source of passion's fire.
I hope my letter finds you loved and well,
I've found in me a heart concealed with rust.

Portrait of a Robot

I feel nothing for you
I’ve known your cold metallic bones
The arms of steel that fixed my bike
I feel nothing for
Your rusted eyes leaking thick oil
And when you lost your legs and had to crawl
That annoying clicking sound of your heart
When you laid too close....
Last night they put you away
Maybe into the ground
What do I care I
Feel
Nothing.

Recounting a Traveller’s Tale

Traveling down a parched rural road
I came across a rank eviscerated trunk
Its ribs as though jutting from soil
Ivory stems doused in ebony blood
Blindly walking forward away from the bones
I looked back to the stories in paper
Odorless words like sanctions and bombs
While the merciless sun shone brighter
And the wind trying to twist away the news
As though I were in some Aesop’s fable

Years later when I’ve recounted the tale
Often enough like a sailor fighting off doubts
I can no longer be sure what I saw or whose

Impossible Discovery

The teacher adds, “I’m very sure
Oxygen had been discovered
During the seventeen hundreds—”
“But no!” The student interjects,
“Professor, with all due respect,
What then did people breathe before!?”

It Sulfur Charity

"It Sulfur charity, they want to go to Polonium."
"Lithium go", you said, and now the boys, all of them,
Argon.  The Copper said they tried to get Radium,
But he Krypton after them from Francium
All the way to Germanium, just to Cesium.
"When will Uranium in?"  I often asked you about them.
But It's too late now, it's time to Barium.

Moon-Sun

Every nychthemeron the sun
Ascends a set of fluffy steps
With the same grace and dignity,
Gives another soliloquy—
Golden words of luminous warmth—
To all blooms and beggars alike.
But what begins must end and so
The sun descends behind the rocks,
Changes into snug pajamas
(of vivacious phosphorus white)
And so it begins the night shift
Do not judge! It got stars to feed!

Exhibits of Love

Gloved hands probing deepest of wounds,
Valiant hearts and committed minds
Wrestling with death each moonless hour;
The mud-caked faces, bloodied claws,
Of the firemen that dig and scour
Through charred rubble for silent bones;
The voices that uphold such laws
Protecting every assortment known
Of skin or faith, of age or kind;
The truest exhibits of love.

Fear

Fear is the bleeding yarn
Fear is the fleeting dawn
Fear is the grave of sleep
Fear is the fiery yawn

Fear is the naked plain
Fear is the shield and chain
Fear is the spider's creep
Fear is the lion's mane

Fear is the godless leer
Fear is the throaty croon
Fear is the missing sheep
Fear is the icy moon

Fear is the crack of bone
Fear is the dark unknown
Fear is the drowning deep
Fear is the dying moan

Fear is the perfect line
Fear is the senseless sign
Fear is the patterned beep
Fear is the curving spine

Fear is inside this yarn
Fear has knit my rhyme
Fear oh you fool...
My will's as sharp as knife!

Sitting and Standing

My spine falters again.
Whose orders I obey?
Must I of all people
hold up here, these heavens?
My lungs against them too,
Struggling, swell, then fall.
My breath's chased down a maze
Where flesh contorts and aches,
Where echoed sighs are felt,
Escaping bony caves.

If sitting drains me so,
Perhaps I need to stand.
Should standing feel the same,
Might help this man to know
One day the struggle may,
Despite incessant doubts,
In time with grit and faith
That spring from love within,
Sustained by that without,
Let true acceptance in.

Wish

I wish for peace and happiness,
For safety's hug and hope's caress.
I wish for fast and full relief
From aches, abuse, and suffering.
I wish for strength and well-being,
To live in kindness that endures.
For grit and grace in times of grief,
Freedom that heals and love that cures.

Dressings

This is the only absolute bible....
And so the voices worked out the title:
Revolutionary.  Latest.  Breakthrough.
Complete and up-to-date.  Revised.  All new.
Basics.  Fundamentals.  Bare essentials—
Written by a grave face with credentials.
The ultimate authoritative guide.
The best-seller, recommended worldwide.
Art and science of.... Step-by-step how-to.
From the only expert...doctor...guru.
For dummies.  Idiots.  Morons.  Brainless.
Solutions.  Tips and tricks.  Hidden secrets.
A powerful book—good too for your health.
Gives you better sex, success, freedom, wealth.
As usual I've happened to digress:
The subject?  Salad dressings that impress.

Doors

In hospitals here are countless doors
that lead nowhere.  Nowhere!  I know the ones
with numbers on them maybe make you think
behind must lie some truth or certainty.
Like the ones down the hall with names on them
or doors beneath the glowing exit signs.
Do not be fooled by such decorations.
They close and open but they lead nowhere.
These doors here now I've gone through more than once,
they told me these ones here, the swinging type,
ones colored baby blue—I don't recall.
But once inside, I'm sure, I've never left.
Some say our minds and hearts they too have doors,
and long corridors made of nerves and veins.
It's far too easy getting lost in there,
when things out there, a touch or sound, a light,
become a sense, a feeling, form a thought,
become a part of you, and loop inside,
and set off countless other loops of pain....
Once you're in here, you're never ever out.

That Shark

Between the feverish shiver
of sharks, and the approaching spout
greedily slurping ocean's waves;
with green and orange colored canes
(as though the sailboat's veins; or snakes
that crawled from dark of reachless depth);
with stranger of a schooner there
nestled on distant foamy crests,
with every kind of beast and bird,
a sight from future, maybe past?

You hold your head up with such grace.
Please tell me this:  Are you content,
sitting, reflecting on your life,
on goals of lawless motion, sense
in ages, hours, in this moment?
But leaning back you look composed.
How soft your feet and loose your toes!
In chaos all about have you
at last secured yourself a home?
Oh tell me how, please tell me how!

You look dignified, look so sure.
Am I wrong though, are you in pain?
Did you give up, believe you'd failed,
to now be looking back, away
from kismet's open drooling mouth,
your will in pieces like your mast,
your soul is torn as now's your sail?
Don't stop the fight, don't give up hope.
In awe of you for now, it's I
that shark who's looking up to you!

Inspired by:
"The Gulf Stream" by Winslow Homer, oil on canvas,1899.
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11122

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Winslow_Homer_-_The_Gulf_Stream_-_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg (wikimedia public domain)

The Only One

A mount of rice, many peaks of saffron,
the myriad skewers of ground lamb kebab
with basil and sumac—wrapped in sangak—
and barbequed tomatoes.  For dessert
black mulberries in sugar, in golab,
and then ruby seeds, freed of skin and pulp,
garnished with lemon and Persian hogweed.
Then comes sholezard, sohan, and halva.
A child's hand reaches for tahdig.
It's painted red.  She's almost six.
Her searching eyes see things blurry.
She's the only one there, the young
lady stands in silence and waits.
Outside the home in the heavy rain
an old argument has broken out,
someone's been shamed, another
disrespected, a young woman blames
her own kind heart, a heavyset man mumbles
something to God, looking at the moon,
a boy shouts something that seems to have wounded
his own nephew's pride.
An old woman groans, and there
A quiet man with a thick mustache
bends over and cries; and then blubbers.
Inside a lady is reaching
for tahdig, for food, for something.

Good Old Days

Like rice one throws at weddings, fists of ice
Were flung against my own bedroom windows.
I rose in fright, my face drenched in mirrors.
Although I looked the selfsame as before,
That gusty dawn when I woke, I felt old;
As though a crucial threshold had been crossed,
As though was wed to Chronos now, shackled
To pounds of sagging flesh and porous bones.
Back in the good old days my body formed
The (veiled) foundation of my strength, freedom.
The worthless box that held the priceless stone;
The papers of my love letters; scaffolds
To build my dreams, they'd now become gallows.
Back in the good old days I didn't know.

In the Snow

In the spring why
must we die?
I think
we were made
out of snow.
Moments preserved
in every flake
of every mold.

Memories melt.
Insensitive sun.
In the slush
sinking....Who's who
in the ocean?
I'm palpable me
A frozen smile
in the snow.

Story of Buck

Up close he looks like a bereft cowboy
Waiting his turn for some more campfire beans.
Except Buck is in an institution,
both hands on hips posing in line for pills.
No rope nor gun, and not atop a horse,
No cowboy boots, neither donning a hat.
Still Buck had been a true cowboy no less,
Who'd owned some sheep and cattle and a ranch.
But then one day his soft reflection asked:
Oh Buck must we eat flesh, must we not grass?
So Buck let the ranch and the livestock go,
And grazed each day along with cows and sheep. 
But soon the land owners restrained our Buck.
They dragged him to the doctors; shackled, tied.
These days you won't see Buck out in the field,
But here surrounded by the walls—sans glass.
So now snowed into sanity, Buck sleeps.

Truth Is the Lollipop

They toddle; how they fall!
It snows; in Vancouver.
Space tightens; times too slow.
Grownups grimace; kids glow.
I've heard myself titter.
But why could I not stop?
Freedom is a tyrant
for the hungry thinker.
Seeking manna I’ve failed
to read the child’s answer:
Truth is the lollipop.
Recall when you were small
and when a severe hail
meant hard candy for all?
The sun is out, the snow
at last started to thaw.
This time I do not think.
Could be the little things.

Barbed Wire

imprisoned by taX that falls like aX can't relaX
when my faX like some broken saX about to climaX
beeps as I speak with my eX oh I miss seX
she was a foX and yet here I am filling her boX
with her things the bronze oX her blue soX
the detoX pills and a picture of her in tuX
the X-rated flicks we bought that couldn't fiX
it was too compleX like tears for kleeneX
like this accursed taX papers and my old faX
machine that spat another siX pages into the miX
the barbed matriX tightens around this phoeniX
inside I hope I rise anew from this jinX so sphinX
please speak a paradoX and help me out of this boX

An Inland Taipan

My heart’s floundering

I feel it recoil
An inland taipan
Can be forgiven
Could I forgive you?
Something in me moans
Bleeding something folds
So it must be fed
The stone-eyed in you
Slithering empty
In heart dry of red
Now a frozen fort
You take extra care
Ones like mine are weak

You never mean harm
As there is no you
But empty craving
To bite the living
Life that flattened you
So now from down there
We are all just boots
Might step on you thus
You must be lethal
If you want to live
So I tell my heart
Its petals folded
Tale of the taipan
That ate a woman….

It's Not Easy at All to Give Thanks

It's not easy at all
To give thanks.  You recall
I'm sure the day you sent
Me, this heavy present
You wrapped in skin and woe—
With nerves you'd tied the bow!
The day you sent this I:
Unknown, unasked, from high;
With fury, fear, and shame;
With grief, torment, and blame....

The vacuum cleaner drones
And fills the emptiness
With dead skin cells and waste.
This old vacation home
Is where we'll house the guests
This Thanksgiving. What's more,
A child who coughs and spits
Who laughs for no reason
Looks up at me, says thanks.
I don't understand you!

Patterns

For years I
people like me
very young and old
the sick and the dying
the scientists and priests
the nurturing and the kind
the lonely and the slaved
looked inside and out
to discover and
to decipher
patterns

I don’t
know why
they all needed
to solve these patterns
myself I know only wanted
to stop the crying
wishing that
I was never
born

Haiku

I free my macaw
It knows my ancestor's ghost
That palm smiles and cracks

Hands Full of Rocks and Grapes

I came back home with grapes and rocks.
Some smiled, I saw some too who frowned.
The grapes I picked up at the store.
The rocks I found along the way.
Perhaps some looked and thought: What for?
With hands full of assorted rocks...
But why that plastic bag of grapes?
What plans he got for these today?
For certain not to squash the grapes!
To play with rocks while eating grapes?
To play with grapes while eating rocks?
Perhaps this man is far from sound:
There's not a reason, we are sure,
To carry home those grapes and rocks.

Plus-One

This last Sunday I was the plus-one
So self-conscious I was half only 
Sam was there too although minus four
Saw him tear up back there on his phone
Phil was there plus two little ones
Who added up to pure shrieking fun
Tim was plus-one too but a new one
She used to be my one and only
Tanya a plus-one but all alone
Her partner as always a no-show
Chantelle for a change without her wine
Since her plus-one was zero point one
Zoe with another handsome one
Rated him of ten a twenty-one
The night was long and the maths confused
Ate and drank so much I left plus few
Yet I felt like a big fat zero
At home crying hard in the mirror
But next time there I'll try something new:
I'll count only me and only you

New Things

Once a year the rain
rinses the urn of our sins
Inside new things grow