Tag Archives: beauty

ISFAHAN

ISFAHAN

“The world always decides”
      Kingdom of Heaven (dir:
       Ridley Scott)

It is hard
to see
the past
           through
all the
      smoke, mustard and
nerve gas

death mirrored from
mirror to
    mirror

same old
lies and deceit
again and again

unless a door opens
and then another
rooms nested
within rooms, infinite regression
a theme in boxes
and dolls

but with you, Tabanda,
a door opened

and looking back
now I am at last able
to reconnect,
reconstruct through
all the disinformation
and outright lies

what was it Rumi, Omar
Khatami wrote
about beauty?
Surely, Tabanda when
they wrote their lines
they had you in mind.

The Sin
   of Empire

born into a fading self-
important brutal Empire
close to camps and
fortresses founded
by Rome
         (taught us
everything)

forgive me
   for my ignorance
not realizing how deep
these assumptions
of superiority really go

how it is here
in the semantics, structured
in the very syntax

and you sitting in the classroom
smiling imbibing my
attempts to
     teach  instil my
mother tongue

so what if I told you
I have never travelled
to Isfahan
    your lately bombed,
beautiful city

city whose name
is such a pleasure
for the mouth to speak

****

I am disappearing
off radar

see stars floating
across the sky

and my memory if you
my so-called impossibly demanding
jaw-droppingly beautiful
student from Isfahan

everything here
you can translate into Farsi

Persian time
cannot be said to be
a short system of time

I think of your war
your million dead
        not a statistic, each
a remembered martyr

the Libra medallion about
your neck
   glinting for a moment
in the hard
English sunshine

in the Fitzgerald translation
(his own reworking)

Sultan’s turret
caught in a noose of light

EYES

EYES

thought it was
a web

but then,
as you carefully pointed out,
it is more
a nest

in fact,
your nest

place of ongoing struggle
about survival

which
    got me to swivel
from my initial, position less
enlightened

trying to see your world
from your pespective, situation,

admittedly difficult
since you have eight
legs, eight eyes
and I
   have but
two

and as for all those
legs and eyea

what legs!
what eyes!

  how apt, on point,
suited to task

and
    if you think about
them carefully

how beautiful too!

HEPHAESTUS

HEPHAESTUS

the cripple

even Hephaestus
by dint of marriage vow and
obligation

got to fuck wife Aphrodite and her
to make pretty for him

and despite her best beauty instincts
to to thunderously climax
thinking of
lover Ares, brawny beast personified,
of his depth of
possession and strength of
control

nevertheless, thrilling her husband
with, even if not for him,
sweet loving words
whispered into her ear

much despite her better must
be what I am true
sexual goddess judgement

for this time at least
willing to do ugly if not
entirely in the cause of charity,
this somewhat
adulterated by
something
difficult to differentiate between
love
that suddenly makes
an appearance from nowhere
and pleasure, that is
what it is, and, by rule of thumb
(and fingers
and everything, should never be
withheld, denied or
unreasonably contained)

HITHER

HITHER

I wandered through poetry
thought I knew
this place
well

looking for wisdom
looking for humanity

my outlook by
no means negative
      though by no means
expecting
wonders
        miracles, transformation,
soul-shaping
life-
defining metaphors
and sadly I must add
conceding
   no possible hope
for love

which is exactly where I found you
    chatting to my Muse
(why is
   Muse never lover?)

man
     most well-measured
not a syllable out if place
but your
voice
      your voice

I do not hear
       perhaps it is just too
comfort-zone, risk
averse

   agrophobic
when it comes to

to the beyond, the boundless,
our freedom
           in a nutshell

shattering it to smithereens
with the force of
poetic pressure

and perhaps
     the poet too

perhaps
we should stay contained
work like
jewellers do
in miniature

for this is a dangerous age
bad time
      for words

and I, for my sins and
pretensions of
truly sinning

have wandered so far
of course, too
far away            thus
with
    grace

let me leave
             you here

for who
would now come hither?