To a Young Artist

Like the pains and pangs of Modigliani

Turn into a portrait of yourself

With new colors and empty eyes

Gaze straight without a wink

And your beholders who shoot your art but not you

Can never bother you with the light of flashes and click of cameras

Like the Sufferings of the Young Werther

Turn into a story unrhymed and free verse

With a tragedy at the end of yourself

Burst into tears and purify your heart

And your readers will learn that it is love

That holds the world together at its core

Like a Beethoven’s symphony, numbered Five plus One

Play yourself in harmony with the cruelties

Thumping mercilessly at your house door

Accept and endear realities of life with a secret

From your audience that your best award

Was your father’s slap on your face

Like a Dega’s dancer, dance carefree

Like a Shakespeare’s Comedy, laugh at life’s errors

Like a Paganini’s Caprice, love remorseless and impulsive

Like poetry, live with valor and truth  

Be the best of yourself

Forgive

Song of Windows

Last night when I was sticking my cheek on the window

Looking out at the stretched skin of the night

And the pores through which light poured out

The window whispered into my ear

His dream to break free from its stone frame.

All night in my nightmare I heard the glasses being shattered

In the morning, the window was gazing stoutly

At the nonchalant people rushing up the street

Who had never heard the song of windows.

Hey Hoo

I want to let go of all the feathers

I kept in my elementary school books

On those pages that had poems

By Mostafa Rahmandoust

I want to climb the school tower

And shout out loud all the verses

They made me memorize

The pomegranate with rubies inside

The song of the rain on the tin roofs

Little girl, little girl do not be a fool

Life is fine, love and respect all

Be good, be good, be true!

I want to tear my book of Hafiz

And let his Ghazals fly page by page

Like magic flying carpets

Over the city of mice and men

I want to cast a spell and turn

The school trees into nude bar maids

Drinking wine from pitchers

With their body hairs purple

And their left arms flung in the air

All humming “Heyyyyy hey hey 

Hoooooo hoo hoo

Life is short, too too too!”

Healing Violin

His arm flows in the air

Robbing the bow on the strings

Mesmerizing the memory of the audience

And generations to come

Healing, healing, healing the scars he exposed

To me when our bodies were entangled

Like two gold fish in a tank on New Year’s table

On the long dark Nowrooz Eve

Flying, flying, flying my soul free of my past

Like a feather in the evening breeze

To kiss him on his lips and the smile

That says, “All is fine. All will be better.”

  

Fine and Flying

There is comfort in poetry, your last recourse

There is comfort in hope

There will be a hug to trust

There will be a hand to pressure

There will be love in a thin ray of light

That sneaks in through the curtains

And says, “Good morning, wonderful lady!”

There is comfort in the smell of a wooden rosary

There is comfort in prayers

There will be an ear to listen

There will be a heart to beat

There will be joy in the honk of a truck

That pierces your ear plugged sleep

And says, “You are alive and kicking.”

There is comfort in forgetting the past wounds

There is comfort in forgiveness

There will be a word to heal

There will be an eye to care

There will be miracle in a wing

That matches yours

And says, “We are fine and flying.”

Rain and Drum

I watch the rain through the library window

As if I have never seen one before

I stick my ear on the glass and listen

It has a word with the grass

Words it never told any man

It has a message for the sun

For the moon which always hide

Behind the cloud at the moment of the rain.

Oh, I am rainy, I am rainy, I am rainy.

I have a word with you

A word with him and a word with her

Words I have never told anyone.

Will you let me rain on your leaves

When the night has stretched itself over us

Framing us like a drum?

Beat it! Beat, beat, beat!

I know how to dance to the rhythm of a man

When he begins to discover my faults

After he has explored my body

Like an ancient civilization buried under sand

I am too accomplished to enjoy trivial life things

I am too much of a woman for a man like you.

Beat, beat, beat!

Deafen the ears of history

This is an ancient war

We win when we both win

We lose when we both lose

Peace can never fill in the gap between us

We are obliged to the battle

Till the morning of glory and brunch

 In a French café on the sunny side of the walkway.

Beat, beat, beat!

Beat the heart out of my chest

Throw my empty corpse

On the steps of your temple.

May this sacrifice be accepted

By that god of yours, pride

Which I have hurt with my words.

Hang me from my tongue

Over a huge bon fire

Burn me like a witch

But I shall rise from my own ashes

To sing.

I have a song I have never sang for anyone.

I have a new story for this old library

Which has a window to the rain.