Hossein Farjami – Nagmeh Esfahan

Denise Levertov – A Dark Summer Day

feathers of the elephant

tattooed with gandhi
no skin will lie,
bare butt piss
constant lemon stream,
she watched his fuzzy back
dark mat of curls
lined by her nails,
depressed bed
mattress coils gone
before their advertised expiry,
a week of this
longing and urgent,
walking back
she waited
a sharp twinge in her stomach,
the next day 
could not come quick enough

 

blood of the cucurbita

we are myth

we are legend,

behind fences we are found

bred and sacrificed on all hallows eve,

generations past

gutted and carved in celebration,

so misunderstood seen only as decoration

as human skulls on poles once where,

unlike my wild cousins in mexico

scattered over landscape and mountain,

they do not suffer the tampering

of our genetics

79 loci,

phenotypic slides for frankenstein,s scientist

altered , inbred,

not realizing our beauty

in shape and color

palmate leaves , long tendrils

unisexual flowers touched by gentle bee

curling about stamen

stroking with long legs

collecting pollen my yellow stain

peponapis body thrumming

resonant on my petals,

10,000 years of domestication

treated worse than dogs

compliant in nature as man knows best

our flesh substance forgotten

as gourd display incised and flensed

to amuse and terrify

projects of another’s nature

that is more disturbing and cruel

72 Panels

behind her shoji screen

where protected, felt assured to be naked

no unbidden glances

would spill from a mans eye

gathered in her own mind

and clothed touched the soft panels

each to represent a year of life,

the ones lived and ones to come

patches of existence on a written timeframe,

smiling she moved to the window

hillside and meadow

no sharp intrusions to the eye

looking back she wondered of the last panel

what  ghosts lurked behind

for it was hidden

until the time was right,

a swarm of bees sounded outside

nectar and honey

as she expected love to be

but mother said not,

spoke of not having to worship a man,

his edges not so rounded

where often cruel as father was

to others but not her

not a favorite they just understood,

it did not matter of the last panel

for she knew how long she had

as sliding the door behind

walked out onto a busy street

 

 

sublime oranges

he measured the room

by volume of the dark

with light subtracted,

moving as ulysses did in hades

he would find breakfast on the sand,

ocean not so far away

as high tides where relevant,

rituals began

ideas stencilled on embryonic dna

created this path and outlook,

sometimes he felt it was only he

he revolving and the earth had stopped,

it was not a crisis of meaning

only an imbalance on his poetics,

even in the dark

he could place a pen nib and write

about placing kisses on her

naked arcitecture,

a finding in deep silence

what she had really meant

under that cloak of shuddering mysticism

pen scratched paper

it would be ten pages,

before images faltered and pen halted,

ignoring wine that had already spilled on

table top,

peeled an orange

segmented aspects from which to

derive a special calm,

her bewitching had been an interference

but now choking fumes cleared

and he was at last

truly free

@dVersePoets

elephant looks in a broken mirror

when a thought becomes a fraction

divided into memory

and everyday fatigue

it settles not happy to remain

will divide again

into dreams and realization

long cerebral passageways

cluttered with electric snapshots

of a life lived long,

thinking was a process

started in the morning

after rinsing mouth and bathing

combed and prepared

opened the mind

some fractions found division harder

and became elongated spools

of tension and agitation

hands that tremor

ever so slightly

as sipping a glass of lemonade,

beneath this mass of

seething activity

normal had almost resumed

old fractions worked

looking at a photo album

your son found in the loft

other debris of a life in one place

gathered and divided

and will be when your

gone

 

 

angels at the pagan threshold

landscape seen by standing eye

on wind stripped rooftops edge,

answers pilgrims of nausea

fall as if from the depths of the sky,

horizon alone with forest

sun faced green silk and gold,

tracks of those who journey in faith

into the still of wooded glade,

within voices imagined

brambles pulled by enraged fingers

mess and tangle hide

that place used as a remote hope,

he should be there

pale faced

emotions a fountains stream

pleasure would not be found

with slackened vines,

this horizon embraced him

pulled into its complex afternoon

where time lie down

petal seconds fall,

chaos is not for choosing

sleep will not be heeded

as these files of thought

are put away,

staunched by class,

those in power jailers to tomorrow,

gas would fill indecent blue

and many more would fall,

for the sake

of secrets of kings

wordle

99% fractured glass

letterman taught liberal arts

bukowski master of the open portal

that caught flies and dirty blondes ,

there where no country estates

or manicured ladies in crinolene,

too much hubbub

and relentless spiral of those

who live in such an octopus town,

that solar flares light the street

and guide those whose frail stories

stumble over awkward words

and metaphor,

master of bliss

with shimmering teeth

and boiling stench caught on

warmer breeze

vigilant for kisses and erotic

composure,

severed happiness from tears

and kept each separate,

behind the doors of our octopus

town the withered languish

robbed of enchanted loins

and their tears now crystallized

as rings for deaths fingers,

clotted souls clogged

as choked diaphragms coughed and

hacked sluices of phlegm,

the doors opened for a moment each day

quick enough for a shadow to be

flung out,

madness was a bomb on every street corner,

diffused as she appeared,

her deceit to entice

and enchant,

womb of silken flotsam

carried nothing hopeful,

yet her heart once orphaned

brought a rising sun

that closed the portal

to bukowski’s dismay

letterman fell aside victim

to iron skies and sanities rent,

heal deep she called

finding it broken

and lambs put together the pieces

with a well chewed glue

on notable sea

tone dialing remedy

better than those gulls

filling the air with

pull of sea,

encroaching on ears

cochlea tremors

insistent and provocative,

life needed to be in boxes

without labels,

identifying was not the issue

it was separation,

the telephone a child

cradled under chin

suckling on words,

spectacles perched with vertigo

on top of a crooked nose,

lips always poised

to speak but that was of

no consequence as sound

could carry further than voice,

a scream long prolonged

that was what pain brought,

gulls worse than cicadas

blood curled into fingers

then returned leaving them white

and grasping

still nothing,

slit your veins and fill a boat

with a swilling legacy

of something that

should of been,

letting gulls fall

bathing feathers redder

dVersePoets