Ali Abdolrezaei
translated from Persian by Abol Froushan
Miss Ziari
My eyes didn’t wander
I just wandered in her eyes
those burning embers
I was fuel to
The deft sculptor
to chisel such delicate nose
was me
the butchering of her lips
between the teeth
What a tongue!
Hands of a masseuse hid in her eyes
O my God
someone come light up
this black pair of cigarillos
squirming like seductive serpents
in such grace
this woman
was born
prettier than any bunch of flowers
I ever put to water
I ever lost my marbles
under the skin of those cheeks
She is still playing marbles
with the little eyes
my childhood possessed
My eyes do not wander
even if under the desk
I’m still climbing up your legs
in the short skirts you wore
to the prep class at Yari Primary
Miss Ziari*
* I was six when I started school. I had long straight hair, a navy blue jacket, wearing a tie of a colour I cannot remember. We had eleven silly girls in the class who kept coming on to me and I didn’t care. There were eight other boys in the class too, but I had become a man, because I was in love with Miss Ziari. I kept coming onto her but she didn’t care. So I kept getting top marks so she would come caress my hair and tell me with her budding lips, Excellent Ali! There was still one year left to the Revolution which put my love in a frame. Tonight when another love was torn away from me, I remembered my classmates and my teacher, Miss Ziari who, I still do not know why, when the schools shut for holidays, they put her against the wall in the middle of summer and shot a bullet in her chest. No, I still can’t believe it. It is impossible to kill a beautiful woman by a bullet.
Casey Creek
Sex with an Angel
last night i dreamt
that i had sex with an angel
we were lying in the sun
and a golden ring glimmered
on her hands
her hair flowed over
her shoulders
like a waterfall
she was smiling through her
tears so much wanted she
to take me to hold me
to soothe me
last night i dreamt
i had sex with an angel
it was true even if
it happened in my sleep
i undressed slowly
and shy not looking up
for i knew she was too
beautiful
when we both stood naked
i knew she was everything
that i desired
and still more
i dreamt that
the whole world was inside of her
the sun the moon the stars
all bursting light
inside her eyes
her skin as smooth as sand
that god was making
footprints on
isn’t it what
we all dream of
this perfection this
this gold within our hearts
and even though
it will pass
the sensations
the feelings
the pulsating breath
the booming beat
all exploding
the life of stars
already dead reaching us
from light years away
that’s how big
the universe is
it remains fresh
within our minds
forever
you laugh
sex with an angel
it sounds unreal
yet isn’t that
what painters paint
what writers write
what dreamers dream
why can’t it be real
it’s what you read
on every man’s lips
in every man’s eyes
sex with an angel
what we desire
and something about love
we took a step closer
shadows dancing in the sun
with every breath
beneath the apple tree
our hands just brushing
tingles on my skin
my body shakes
sex with an angel
what i’ve always dreamt of
we’re coming closer now
what is done
can’t be undone
you take my hand
i’m a little scared
it’s like any human action
we want to run away
you whisper in my ear
it’s gonna be alright
cos you’re an angel
and then the music starts
the chorus
the lyre
and the harp
all so high and soft and pure
i can’t even hear myself
breathe
i don’t know what is happening
and i don’t want to know
anymore
i just want to relax
to close my eyes
and enjoy this bliss
this sex with an angel
my dream my life my love
my purpose my happiness
she is beautiful in me
and i am beautiful in her
and together we are
just so beautiful
such a feeling person
we’re lying side by side
such a feeling person
i’m feeling as i write
i’m feeling as i breathe
this angel just beside me
she is so human
then flying away
with our fantasies
sex with an angel
what greater pain and pleasure
could there be
Tatjana Debeljacki
There Is
Someone is cracking the branch?!
Hang on till morning.
Here it is inside of me,
Innocent, thirsty
Still waiting for the bread and milk,
Sipping the mint tea.
Bring the peace without the aim
And the flowers for the vase.
Doesn’t know that her soul is freezing, so she takes her time.
Every now and then she sees her but never anything happens.
Starting to believe in miracles.
Is there the heavenly love and
Such a flame
That it never turns into ashes?
Always ripe like an apple!
Eh, my quest for the fire...
I’m intoxicated by the poem, not wine!
Your words are the wind
Blowing my love
Away!!!
Michelle Gaddes
Blowflies with loudspeakers
Some days when you’re so depressed
you just want to
scream
out of your skin and break
down
into millions of drowning
ragged pieces.
All bottles are poison and
lovers, death adders.
Pray for cloud cover
that smothers the dirty
black puppies growing
rapidly.
Blowflies carry loudspeakers
with exclamation marks
for eyes.
Constant rejection just
Strips the heart of red.
Claire Huxham
The Collector
The best way to preserve skin
is to pickle in rice-bran and salt,
rinse thoroughly and stretch out to dry.
My master told me this
and then he showed me.
It lies in folds in a bucket, stripped wallpaper.
I loop it round my ladle like fettuccine,
searching for koi and cherry-blossoms,
some painting chosen by a brain
that told a mouth to say, that’s it, that’s me.
I follow my master through gutters
(he always knows where to look)
and listen to his promises
to make those icons in the head turn flesh.
Body and soul.
You’d think it was a pact with
Ilse Koch the way some of them
went on. But in the end
my master always gets his way
no matter how they cry about burning books.
And in the witching hour
my master walks the halls, surveying
the flashes of other people’s lives;
sweat and sunsets, blood at midnight,
black oceans swum through and secrets
never told.
Fault Lines
on hearing that a population of toads
left their colony three days before an
earthquake struck L’Aquila, Italy
He squats on my pillow, like a Buddha,
nose to nose. He knows things.
Like when the earth will heave
and who’s going to win the next general election.
Still, in the still of the night, I believe him.
He sings of Hollywood burning, of red streets,
blackened suns and broken bodies.
Stop being so bloody melodramatic, I say. It’s not like
it’s the end of the world.
Your microwave will give up the ghost
on the Ides of March, he yodels.
A toad can’t change its spots.
All these strange eruptions to our household
he trills into my ear.
Dry with sunny spells, the weatherman says,
but light precipitation may move north later.
We know better, my toad and I.
And later, when the tremors subside
he murmurs of sandy expanses,
a desert rose at midnight, the singular blue
darkness
under a stone.
Richard Marx Weinraub
White Topaz
A boer from nether lands — I'm bored and boring —
my cleavage: perfect — fools think I'm a diamond.
I'm number one — America's favorite gemstone.
I'm on the TV — Quality Value Convenience.
I'm easy to get — I'm poetry for the masses.
I'm in the hands and on the hearts of millions —
objectified and hot — I come in colors.
It's smart to take vacations from your visage.
Topazos in the Red Sea is Zebirget.
My greatest fear is I'll revert to nature —
my glory in the past — now that is boring.
Saint Hildegarde used me on the people's blindness —
she put me in a glass of wine — Teutonic —
they rubbed me on their eyes then drank the tincture.
But when they tried me on the plague — bubonic —
I didn't do the trick — it was disgusting.
Now I am in an epic made by Ezra —
the eyes in his "Medallion" turned to topaz
when wedded with technology producing
half-witted half watt rays …It doesn't work.
Opal
Selfish people fear what’s marvelous
casting it as aberrant or strange
preaching holy ones come from the Deuce
giving crystal balls the evil eye
Institutions pan the harlequin
making cabbage out of my caboche
Roundheads, churches, synagogues, and mosques
metamorphose fire to prejudice
Language formulates a pigeonhole
“opal” changed to “ophal” by the Queen
saying it made flesh invisible
calling it the touchstone of true thieves
Walter Scott put opal in the hair
of the vampirish Hermione
giving me a necromantic air
sparkling when the sorceress was gay
shooting out red rays when she was mad
till an aspergillum saved the day
sprinkling holy water over me
turning what was brilliant into dust
Nature’s book, however, tells the truth
(aided by the science of the glass)
microscopic spheres in silicon
cause the iridescence of my face
I am Iris bowing over earth
looking into irises of babes
burning with the colors of my play
you will cure the illness of your I’s
Anna Niarakis
(My) home is in your head
to Goran
Undefeated silence
Your home
Is my refuge
Old roofs
Dripping
Hemospheres
Stone veins
Liquid ivies
And sweating windows
Where does my head
Rest?
Where does my home lie?
Voices echo through
walls
Of memory
Pictures of you
In front of a flaming
Fireplace
Where does my heart lie?
Where does my home rest?
Out in the woods
I run
Out in the woods
of my neurons
Carrying you with me
(My) home
Is in your head.
Interzone
I run up the stairs
Like an angel in disguise
I run
Moments before
Our eyes
Meet
my wings vanish
into thin air
Trapped again
In the interzone
Of grey
Each dawn
Kills me with light
Shadows
Never meant to love
Occupy my tears
Vaughan Rapatahana
me and michel foucault
me and michel foucault
met up for a beer
the trouble with foucault was
he wasn’t really there.
he sent a body surrogate
drenched in heavy episteme
just to stress his disavowal
of anymore necessity.
I wish he’d been more forthright
with what he claimed was knowledge
leaving me now adrift from power
and steeped in sacrilege.
his archeological manoeuvre
left me stricken in his maze
just another fictive captive
in that panoptic gaze.
Mercedes Webb-Pullman
Girls at tea
(after John Ashbery)
The best cloth hovers a moment
setting motes in motion
through the leaden air
before it falls to the table
where the girls gather.
Parlour light glints from Natasha’s glasses;
she holds a tattered grey rabbit.
Rebekkah’s turn to sit by the samovar
and pour. She makes sure to offer
sugar lemon and milk, she’s been here
longest. I don’t like these biscuits Lena says
Every day the same. How can you stand it?
Katya wonders why he doesn’t get a better table
so they can all join in, it’s not fair
sometimes you’re not picked for weeks.
Anastasia agrees He plays favourites
He’s all over you like a rash, then you’re left
in the corner like Irene, see now she’s back.
Vavara and Galina, who have the nicest gloves,
decide someone should keep track
and grope about for pencils.
You can’t eat the ugly biscuits because
you can’t pick anything up Ludmilla suggests.
Hey, it’s getting worse, time won’t translate
into the right tense. I don’t know if I can cope
worries Etta.
I am your boss
and you will do as I say, not as I do, Missy.
Watch out or the wind may change
and you’ll stay that way forever Lena advises
idly flicking through an old Popular Mechanics
building solar powered rockets for poor kids
on the block, a gala that includes pony rides and floss,
a new pink party dress with matching shoes.
Ludmilla and Marta can’t remember the last time
they ate ice-cream so they invent a memory
decorated with real whipped cream, wafers
chocolate sprinkles and hot fudge sauce; they share it
with everyone, including the girls at the table.
Everyone asks politely for more.
Irene follows her blue barrette as it flies
through her mother’s summer garden,
slower than real butterflies
still it’s inflicting real damage
on unopened blooms with its clumsy landing
and take-off procedures but she can’t
seem to make it stop, not even when she closes
her eyes. What will she do when her ship comes in?
She hopes it’s a slow boat to China.
Luka who is smallest but not youngest
would rather play with boys and fidgets
with her nose as she whispers
Will some boys come? worried she’s non PC
ready to take off for the suburbs, shoot hoops
through an endless backyard summer.
She plans to run away, with Sonia, they’ve thought of
what sort of sandwiches they should take
in the blue plastic lunchbox with its matching drink flask;
they’ve agreed on the sound of champagne.
Let the fish fry for me, Svetlana decides,
what’s the point of cutting out a hole
if you’re not going to use it? Their mothers
wouldn’t miss them surely, they have so many
and I’m hungry
she says this quietly, in case
she’s offered the plate of ugly biscuits.
She pats her plastic heart secretly
but it doesn’t beat. She thinks
she’d rather have a music box like Sonia.
Etta is stuck in the past pluperfect;
lost in a forest she follows a trail
the wrong way, back to Gretel
holding out a bone. They both like honey
but prefer it without bears. I think
it’s my turn in the hammock
Adalaida announces. I always have it
on Tuesdays in autumn. Besides
it’s raining.
Emilia and Lizaveta have swapped clothes
but no one notices. They decide they’d quite like
an Amazon adventure, and start to learn
the language. Katerina, who has her name down
for astronaut training and is the expert
on all things pertaining to space, says
I bet you didn’t know
yaks have been killed by spacecraft
landing in China. They all laugh.
Feodora and Lenushka are almost dwarfed
by the pile of clothes and patterns and scraps
in the corner near the worktable. I wish
he’d clean up his mess, it’s not as if
there’s lots of room in here, he’s very greedy
grumbles Feodora, and Leni agrees,
they start folding things
but with nowhere to stack them.
They listen to the rain instead.
Sasha and Duscha play I Spy
Sasha starts something beginning with K
and shakes her head at kahlua and kangaroo,
kapok and keepsake and kempt, ketamine
key and kerchief, kettle, kerosene and keyboard,
keyhole, kidnap, kid and kidney, kimono,
kindness, kilt and kingly, kink and kilo,
kitchen, kiss, kit and koala until Duscha gives in.
Sasha says Knob, you’re a knob, a nobby
nooby knob! and Duscha grizzles that’s not fair...
I do wish he’d hurry up fumed Helga. Some of us
have work to do. Some of us don’t want to sit around
all day waiting for the attention of a strange man – after all
we hardly know him. Anechka thinks this could be true,
they all have trouble remembering things, maybe
they haven’t been formally introduced. She glances
at Nadia but can’t see her properly
through the lace at the side of her new bonnet.
Downstairs the doorbell rings. I wonder
who that could be, we’re all here
Anya voices all their thoughts.