|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
Non-essential! It takes time to
digest the public offense, bruising the poetic ego
essential only to itself, as broad as the world.
Howling winds, dark clouds, ghost cities,
horizons overbreaming with despair, the low
widespreading doubt and the high feverish days
filled with progressive red dots on world map, the
incalculable pain, spirit out of sight, from my home
so far away from and yet so close to work, I run
hope's high tide hour, caught on its windblown antenna, its gentle touch on my parched lips, manifesting in form God's grace like raindrops on
windows' pane, a poet's disease of tides, insisting
on poetry's essential nourishment of the soul, with lion's pride, uplifting earth's exhausted staff not knowing who'll feed the hungry and the birds – poets
decree their own confinement to rules of beauty, unhinged freedom,
requiring no appeal.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2020
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
I know the game of exclusion,
have played it all my life and
now I've mastered it,
a talent to brag about.
Exclusion from normality,
the joy of inclusion.
Exclusion from continuity,
the malaise of discontinuity,
the permanent otherness.
It's a mystery how it came about
that my life was exclusively defined
by exclusion, is it in my DNA, or luck
running to another alley, either way
it's a cognitive stimulus, a recurring additive,
a submerged marine lurking in deep waters,
shadow of shadows, a roaming gadfly,
speaking truth to power, and
love to the blind hearts,
lone wolf in the bushes devouring fear,
a humble Sisyphus on a lunch break,
barren habitat in a brumal voyage,
cursed living turned to honor.
Exclusion is the game of powers
to weed out the heretics, those who dare to say no,
and for whatever it is worth I am one,
exercising my right to be free, from the shackle of norms,
of passivity to institutions, and boy they dislike that and
throw you to the wolves, no use circling back to them,
they've written you off forever, which is a fairly long time.
But I've found my mercury essence,
eluding firm ground, like a balloon unhinged to volcano,
the core being out of time, the purposeless defiance,
of a life-time to status quo, born to annoy the scoundrel yes-sayers,
i.e., a rebel with a damn good cause,
crafting the art of impermanence,
reeking inauthenticity, like a Canadian rapid
gently flowing into ocean of rocks,
intellectual vocation in Nietzschean footsteps.
Thus spoke the genealogist Zarathustra,
of the birth and pang of my tragedy,
inked in paradox: you ought to be forever ensnared
in the charmed circle of exclusion,
foreign to the breeze of inclusion, like a forbidden
artefact in an abandoned temple,
approach with extreme caution, burns on contact,
inquire not from him the ticket to paradise,
only the purgatory, yearned to be a mythical giant
cut into size of inconsequential midget. babbling
nonsense, his presumption of originality
vastly overrated, like B-movie pitching for the Oscars
and when the curtain falls, tattered to pieces,
rewarded for his self-deprecation, valor of his
evisceration as hostile other, barefoot sufi,
incubating no word of wisdom; alas the
end of day is near at hand, the appointed hour
to revisit the great halls of unfreedom,
gallantly dishing out diplomas, the new
breed of Orwellian cattle braving the new world
unmindful of Marx's alienated labor., excluded from
wealth, reified humanity.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2023
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
I'm on a learning curve and learned today
a straight line means exponential growth, and
the steeper the line, the faster the death toll.
You saw the number of death this morning?
The tiresome business is all over again.
The stock of coffins dwindling
dazed with grief, I leaf the morning paper, swallowed up
by virus's treachery, racing like a wildfire.
Will it die a natural death?
Its insatiable appetite for death solicits
more concessions from humans who no longer
have individual destinies, only collective destinies.
We either find a rift in its wall of fire
or succumb to our bereavement and anxiety.
I'm on holiday without pay
auto-isolating long before the decree, calculating the
mathematics of defeat, asking
how will it be in three or six months?
and how close to virus's guillotine?
Through aeons of cold thoughts
frost in sheer chasm
no sun moon or star
earth empty bizarre
hell's grim phantasm
dust into dust blown
where ghosts jug on the sidewalks
each one six feet apart, alone
in retreat like ghouls of
lonely cemeteries
wraiths of uneasy covenant
too afraid to surmise the
brave salutation of a
passerby.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2020
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
Hafez and I grew up together
in Shiraz, centuries apart with
similar poetic ether.
Wandering the world together
as if from the same mother.
We were never actually together
the word reincarnated is better.
He lives in me and we suffer together
humanity's woes and ethnic the other.
We're global intellectuals chanting together
not the salute of flags and land of the mother
we preach the ethos of unity and together
in trenches of peace and harmony with the other.
We renounce war as our destiny together
and throw nationalism to dustbin as we gather,
tall we stand, and humble, together
on shoulders of giants like Tolstoy, Schweitzer, Camus and reverent other
But, wait, Hafez has asked to write a new stanza together
song of world peace and none other.
In you, full of yourself, we enter together
Go fill your heart with love of the other.
Dedication: To Noam Chomsky
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2021
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
Palestinians. The river that you have under your tongue,
will never dry up, no amount of white phosphorus and mega bombs will do the job.
They keep hurting you, don't seek revenge, just sit by the river and soon
you'll see the corpses of their extermination dreams float by.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2023
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
It's dead December, we're getting nowhere, ready
for vaccine like a starving tribe shoved from behind
under the bridge, kicking some dust along the way.
A hand holds my arm, hoarse voices coaxes
Life's swindler races to the moon, go to its amusement park!
Is this real or my imagination, girls with mini-skirts, open blouses
giggling by the shore, tossing their suntanned bodies around.
A warm breeze adds to their childish delight. A mother duck's teaching
its toddler how to swim, and kids swarming the ice cream bicyclist
who demands them to line up but they rush forward screaming, falling.
I stumble on a diaper and run to the ocean to clean, that's where the senior
boys hang out and, occasionally, a boat approaches and some hands wave
at the crowd. The sun stares them down, the sand swallows their long shadow, and the tide swings them back and forth, showing traces
of oil slick. Sunburned, I jump over a dune, a crumpled book drops from my pocket, Sonnets of Love, a bearded old man picks it up and reads
It's a sunlight in the darkness, and its name is love. O love, you cook no more fervent. Do not fry my feelings on a cold grill! Is love the only thing that keeps us apart? Yes darling. Thanks heaven.
He's calm and peaceful with a contemplative face speaking generations,
life whirls before him like a movie reel in an outdoor cinema, maybe he was a
forest firefighter, who jumped from the planes to put out the smoke, or worked at a convenient store, where he got his supply of cigarette, or a bus driver who always greeted you with a cheery smile. He points to a woman slumped to a chair, "that's my lady, used to be quite a gal, but is now just happy to be around." I shudder when I think of the moment, when death
keeps them apart. Before that happens, he must thank her again for her many kindnesses.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2020
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
My shadow is waiting patiently to yell at me,
reading Sartre's Being and Nothingness, my ankle
brushing against its thigh.
Too bad you had to sell your soul to stay alive!
There's something odd about it today, sometimes we're
kindered cousins, and sometimes Camusian strangers, needing
psychotherapy, typically the distance between us is larger than
six feet.
I don't want to have bad feelings toward it, I 've looped around it several times to keep it from dragging us to the ground. If it were thinner it'd be easier!
I correct myself giving it a reassuring smile to let it know life's easier without
quarrels between us – as long as we keep a healthy distance, far enough to avoid a handshake, and close enough to keep company in this bitter year of grief. It asks
how do we fight someone whose strength we don't understand?
You never know when it needs a kidney from me. I am its distraction and
vice versa.
Yesterday we settled into seats facing one another. It laughed
life's better in this barren habitat of solitude. But I wasn't ready
for an after-the-quarantine talk, I pushed away and turned to leave
but it nuzzled its face into my neck, demanding to know how I can
feel so perfectly when my wife's in hospital. We're both getting used to
no need for human contact – social distancing's ultimate effect.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2020
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
From river to the sea, an ocean of blood, filled with cries of children;
peace is broken, homes destroyed, lives shattered, a sea of refugees fleeing torrential bombs, under the ether of Western civilization resisting a ceasefire.
From river to the sea, Palestine is on the brink, like an express train to unspeakable tragedy befalling a whole nation, slated for extinction.
History's marching backward, to Rwanda and Auschwitz, a clever strategem for land without its original people, invaded by European settlers citing holy book to lay their claims, like Spanish conquistadors, proclaiming an "empty continent."
From river to the sea, a nation rises and put down like new Spartacus, mutinous against their slavery, and the new King Cnut desperately summoning the waves for Eretz Israel, with no more checkpoints and separation walls; they're only needed for an apartheid state.
From river to the sea, priceless treasures, highlighting architectural ensembles of centuries, buried under the chorus 'finish them,' finish them all, old, young, women, children, their animals too. The magic of land that spawned world religions suddenly has dwindled to a trickle of humanity, the catharsis of a crisis of spirit, shutting down conscience, and soon new settler homes shall be built on tower of skulls, with Gaza's unwelcome beaches available to western tourists again, offering kayakers great thrills at discounted prices, with its banks lined with daffodils and new palm trees, so the pleasure boats can anchor for a day to take advantage of the whirlpools of new resorts with a big sign, no Palestinian allowed.
From river to the sea, the light glows within the dispossessed, and with each martyr, their spirit of resistance blooms, and the saga lingers: Palestine will be free, and Jews and Muslims shall live together in peace.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2023
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
It springs like rain on mown grass
Winds murmur over quiet pines
No hoofbeats of horseman lost
No limpid water from deep springs
oasis lift from arid sand.
Barbarian rides past towers without watchman
Deep thunder in mountain thrown up
Footprints of the darkness
stone like starkness
Harrowing & unhalting.
Grand inquisitor, earth's jailhouser
coverned deep and iron ringed
submerged in auto-cage of steal
Far from end and near to nowhere
lifting our heads to the light of God:
Spare my family and friends, thou great
keeper of souls
In its direness and darkness
footprints of light, our bodies taken,
our self retaken,
wastelands of ruins heaped with ash
mea culpa, mea culpa
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2020
|
Details |
Kaveh Afrasiabi Poem
Today's headline: Mass vaccination in Africa begins in mid-2021
Wildfires do not pause for water hose, their seething pain not soothed by
a retard, life's full of
pose and repose when fairness reigns, otherwise
it's forfeited to vulgar lust.
The season's devil must vanquish
kindly, collectively, without murmuring prejudice, or it seizes upon
our wretched walls, taxing our profit,
the lofty humanity.
Gladly lay account to an unreality,
that Africa gets it first and the West last, can you imagine, they'll
likely nuke Africa to come out first, so the white ruling class of the world
can rejoice a heroic battle won with its golden-wiped, polished media bandits -- they are good for a swindle and a grief.
I want someone to rob the West of all their vaccines and dump them in Africa, so the slave continent can beat the old sorcery kitchen and escape its wilderness, let the scoundrels of the West hue and cry and speak of fairness and equality, scrabbling Africa's chestnut, their halls of power in moonlit gloom. The seven deadly sins of colonialism jump at us too late to stop the momentum, a brilliant revenge: pillage, slavery, settlement, indoctrination, coups and countercoups, and lies, history's full of them, and so is the ballad of the barefeet people's will to resist, every day is a good day to hang a colonialist by a Christmas tree.
Copyright © Kaveh Afrasiabi | Year Posted 2020
|
|