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Best Poems Written by Saeed Koushan

Below are the all-time best Saeed Koushan poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

The Alchemist of Love

Tonight from all but you, beloved, I shall part—
Transform this copper heart to gold through love's bright art.

To taste the drops of your love's sweet alchemy,
Through passion's flame I guide my soul to ecstasy.

The chang and harp intoxicate my heart undone,
Yet your voice's magic echo far outshines the sun.

You spoke of rain, of thorny roads, of shoes that bind—
In midnight's grief I weave your pain within my mind.

While friends are drunk on wine, I'm lost within your gaze;
A corner of your eye's grace I beg through all my days.

When union's joy and morning's ray become your song,
Before each lord of fortune I'll prove my love is strong.

I count your laughter midst the words that softly fall;
Each smile of yours turns every wound to nothing at all.

For every grain of love you grant, O peace of soul,
Like straw to amber's pull, I'm drawn beyond control.

Let dawn's soft breeze bring whispers of your name to me—
Your name, the secret light that weaves my melody.

So known am I, beloved, upon your quiet street,
Where every wandering soul I guide to find their seat.

The wine-bearer holds ruby wine within the cup—
Yet for your love alone, I choose to give it up.

Since to your radiant face my heart's devotion clings,
I've turned from all the world and cut its binding strings.

Though I was seeking you through every weary day—
Now in my heart's realm, as sovereign I hold sway.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

Roots Without Soil

Roots Without Soil

I.
I keep my mother's spoon in my suitcase—
silver worn thin from stirring cardamom tea,
its handle curved like her thumb
pressing into my palm those last mornings.
Now I stir instant coffee with plastic,
the bitter dust settling like ash
from stations where no train returns.

II.
The grocery clerk asks for my name twice.
I spell it slowly, letter by letter,
my grandmother's lullaby
becomes a grocery list
in foreign syllables
that cut sharp against teeth
never meant to hold my name.

III.
At the laundromat, I fold
my father's shirt—still blue,
still holding the shape of his shoulders.
The woman beside me
whispers mi amor to her daughter.
I swallow the Persian words
I want to say to no one,
feel them burn like gravel
in my throat, unspoken.

IV.
Here, trees grow straight and silent,
never bent by desert wind.
Back home, jasmine vines
strangled fence posts in their hunger,
roots so desperate they cracked
concrete, split foundation stones
just to taste water again.

V.
I practice the algebra of forgetting:
subtract the call to prayer at dawn,
divide the taste of dates by distance,
multiply silence
by the weight of unsaid words.
But my dreams still count in Persian,
and I wake with my first language
thick as date syrup
on a tongue that claims forgetfulness.

VI.
Tonight, my hands still brown from the sun
I left behind, I plant mint
in a coffee can, its leaves curled
like my mother's fingers
when she counted prayer beads.
I whisper in the language
I'm learning to bury:
"Grow stubborn. Grow wild.
Teach this foreign dirt
that we were never meant
to be tame."
The first green shoot
breaks through soil like a promise
I'm finally ready to keep.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

When Little Boys Fall in Love

*A Meditation on Growing Up*

## I. [Age 6] — First Light

Your fingernails, chewed down to pink,
sort bottle caps by rust and shine.
I offer you my father's Pepsi crown—
you pocket it without a blink.

## II. [Age 7] — The Promise

Under sheets stretched between two chairs,
your breath carries grape bubble gum.
You whisper secrets through the cotton dark:
"Blood brothers don't abandon theirs."

## III. [Age 8] — First Mercy

Gravel embedded in my palm,
you suck the stones out with your mouth.
Salt-copper taste, the sting of care—
your spit becomes my healing balm.

## IV. [Age 9] — The Communion

You bite the apple, pass it back,
your tooth-marks still warm on the skin.
I press my mouth where yours has been—
first taste of want, first taste of lack.

## V. [Age 10] — The Fracture

"He throws things when the bottle's empty,"
you say, picking at fence paint scars.
Your voice cracks like the rust beneath—
I count the silences: one, twenty.

## VI. [Age 11] — The Shift

Two knocks: your father's coming home.
Three knocks: the coast is clear to play.
But when they corner me at school,
you watch but turn your eyes away.

## VII. [Age 12] — The Breaking

Your mother combs your hair with spit,
pressed for Sunday's hush and glare.
"They say boys like us shouldn't—"
Your eyes go dark. Mine catch the flare.

## VIII. [Age 13] — The Aftermath

I walk past your house each morning,
count the days since your goodbye.
Forty-seven steps to where
you used to wait for me, yawning.

The moving truck comes on a Thursday.
Your mother waves from the front door.
I find a note tucked in our tree:
"Some friendships aren't worth fighting for."

## Coda — Twenty Years Later

Sometimes I wake to phantom knocking—
two, three, then silence where
four should have been your "all clear."
The boy who loved your crooked smile,

the way you'd hum off-key in church,
how you'd bite your lip when thinking,
still searches every crowded room
for eyes that looked at him—and knew.

I keep a bottle cap in my wallet,
rusted Pepsi crown, still gleaming.
Sometimes I hold it to the light
and hear the echo of your dreaming.

Some hungers keep the taste of what they break in.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

An Elegy for the Dawn's Betrayal

## 1.
A morning cloaked in guile arrives,
It breathes upon my land, no light,
This realm now bound in frost's cold curse,
Where hearts are held in icy night.

## 2.
The spirits of the blameless weep,
Their muted cries pierce through the air,
For sins they never chose to bear—
Their names erased beyond repair.

## 3.
With honeyed kiss and lullaby,
The traitor dawn shuts down our eyes,
Where hope is strangled soft and sly,
And broken vows beneath us lie.

## 4.
The sun, a silent witness, spies
The dawn's betrayal through the skies,
But feigns its sleep and turns away—
A coward in the light of day.

## 5.
No rustle of the autumn leaves,
No summer warmth that might relieve,
The garden walls stand cold and bare—
No mercy left to heal despair.

## 6.
Rivers once bold now silent grow,
Their silver tongues now mute with fear,
While ravens feast on what they know—
The death that flows through waters clear.

## 7.
The dawn devours our silent screams,
It murders night's forbidden dreams,
And drowns tomorrow's golden gleam—
A thief of time's eternal stream.

## 8.
They steal the fire I've kept within,
And brand upon my bleeding heart
The name of every fallen kin—
A wound that tears my soul apart.

## 9.
The dawn—like some mourning queen—
Adorns herself in veils of grey,
Kneels upon my homeland's grave,
To weep for what was swept away.

## 10.
Then breaks the earth, her children rise
With hollow gaze from soil's deep night—
The reckoning begins at last now,
A resurrection from this blight.

## 11.
O Saqi! Pour from wine-dark depths,
The draught of ancient mothers' tears,
To drown this nation's burning grief,
The burden of forgotten years.

## 12.
O minstrel! Raise your music high,
Let us dance upon the burning ground,
From ashes new, the phoenix soars—
With wings of fire, freedom-bound.

## 13.
Each night I bear death's whispered song,
Its hollow tune beats in my chest—
Yet still I wake to right the wrong,
Though weary, wounded, dispossessed.

## 14.
And though my bones may turn to dust,
My spirit soars beyond the crown—
The dawn may break, but I endure,
Till justice lights each waiting town.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

Eclipsed by Your Light

All night I sit beside the cup
You left half-empty, growing cold—
The jasmine scent still rises up
From tea we shared like amber wine.

My fingers trace the ring you made
On wood where breath left ghostly marks.
This ghost-pressed circle will not fade,
Though you dissolved in summer dark.

I press your sweater to my face
And breathe the orange blossom air
That lived inside each soft embrace—
Now curled beneath my ribs like prayer.

The radiator clicks and hums
The rhythm of your sleeping breath.
My pulse recalls how evening comes
In waves that pull me close to death.

Outside, the city learns to wake
While I unlearn the weight of you—
Each dawn another vow to break,
Each dusk another promise new.

What madness keeps me counting stairs
You climbed just once to reach my door?
I’ve memorized the way you wear
Silence like a dress I tore.

But here’s the crack in my defense:
Love doesn’t end—it leaves its trace,
Like fingerprints on window glass,
Invisible in morning’s grace.

Tonight I let the jasmine fade—
This house can keep what we once made.
I’ll wash the sheets of memory’s thread
And learn to live with rain instead.

The morning spills across my floor
Where shadows held your shape to me.
Some ghosts remain forevermore,
Some doors stay cracked and set us free.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

A Garden of Memory

The morning comes with brittle cold,
Where once her garden used to grow.
My mother's hands lie cold and still—
The earth holds secrets she will never tell.

She woke before the sun each day,
To catch the light in cupped palms.
Now dawn arrives to find her gone,
And silence where she hummed old psalms.

The sparrows from her apple trees
Have scattered songs upon the wind.
The roses bow their thorny heads—
They sense that summer's at an end.

I walk alone her beaten paths,
My footsteps echo through the rows.
The house remembers how she moved—
Her coffee cup still holds her morning warmth.

Her voice still murmurs in the rain,
Her laughter lingers in the leaves.
The worn brass thimble by her chair
Holds all the stories that she weaves.

When twilight comes with autumn's hush,
I light a candle by her place.
The flame wavers like her breath
And fills the room with her embrace.

She used to call me "little seed"
When storms would shake my tender doubt.
Now standing in her silent kitchen,
I feel her arms—and break right out.

Death claimed her body, not her voice—
She lives in every word I speak.
The strength she planted in my bones
Now guides me when the world feels bleak.

Though sorrow steals my breath away,
And tears may blur the world I knew,
I'll carry forward what she gave—
Her stubborn love will see me through.

When spring returns with April rain,
Her lessons will remember too—
The hands that shaped both hope and me
Will bloom again in all I do.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

A Universe of Love

The way you fold your coffee cup
between both palms on winter mornings—
I memorize this quiet ritual
as if it were scripture.

Your thumb traces circles on the ceramic rim,
steam curling like your hair after rain.
In that suspended moment before speech,
I taste the salt of almost-losing you.

Last Tuesday, when you laughed
at my terrible joke about quantum physics,
your shoulders shook like earthquake aftershocks,
and I swear the kitchen tiles shifted beneath us.

You stare at the scar above your left eyebrow—
that childhood accident you never speak of.
My lips find that small, stubborn silence,
kiss it into something like forgiveness.

Your breathing changes when you sleep,
becomes the tick of our bedside clock
counting moments I refuse to waste
on anything but this: your pulse against my wrist.

I lie awake memorizing these rhythms,
knowing morning will steal
the particular way you say my name
when you're still half-dreaming.

The space between your fingers
when you reach for mine
across the breakfast table—
sunlight pooling on white porcelain—
measures exactly the width

of everything I cannot say:
how your laugh makes coffee cups
tremble on their saucers,
how your absence turns doorways
into rooms I cannot enter.

—Stop.
Before the day forgets how softly it began.

In the ordinary Tuesday light,
you butter toast and hum off-key—
and the kitchen holds its breath,
like dawn learning how to rise.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

Fragment of a Burning

Your voice cuts through steam
from my cup. I count
the seconds between each word,
save the way you pause
before saying rain.

Three weeks of coffee shop mornings—
your shoulders slump deeper
when you mention deadlines.
I memorize this angle,
how your jacket pulls
at the seams.

Today you ask about my weekend,
folding a blue shirt corner to corner.
I practice saying "maybe"
but my throat
closes like a fist.

The bookstore holds us
both in its quiet.
You read the back
of a paperback while I
pretend to browse poetry,
watching your thumb trace
the spine's edge.

Then you mention Sarah
from accounting—
how she laughs at your jokes,
how she brought you coffee
this morning.

My chest tightens.
I trace a slow breath
over the stain
on my sleeve,
count the threads
coming loose
at my cuff.

Tonight I'll walk past
the bus stop where
you wait each morning,
past the crosswalk
where you check
your phone for messages
I'll never send.

Will you notice?

Some hungers shrink
when you stop feeding them.
I'm learning to want
the size of what's possible—
your Tuesday morning nod,
the way you say my name
when others are listening,
the steam rising
from two separate cups.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

Enchantress

You arrive like the first word
of a language I didn't know
I was born to speak—

the way you bite your thumbnail
when you're lying,
how your keys jangle
three times
before you find the right one.

That Tuesday morning glance
splits me clean:
before you,
after you.

*

Your laugh tastes like the last cigarette I never smoked—
bitter and necessary,
the kind of harm
I'd choose twice.

I follow your perfume
through morning streets—
vanilla-cedar, the scent
you wear like armor—

until I'm standing
outside your apartment,
realizing I don't know
your last name.

*

In my dreams, I have courage.
In my dreams, I knock.

But I wake to this:
your coffee cup abandoned
on my counter,
lipstick stain like a signature
I can't decode.

*

Today I saw you with someone else.
Her fingers laced through yours
like they belonged there,
like they'd been there all along.

Your laugh in the distance,
then her hand on your chest—
the world tilted.

I stood there watching
until a stranger asked
if I was lost.

Yes, I said. Yes, I am.

The world tilted.
I bit my tongue until it bled,
walked home tasting iron
and the salt of my own stupidity.

*

If you came to my door now,
you'd find only
the hollow
where hunger carved out
my name.

But I keep inhaling the ache,
this fool who called the echo
a promise,
who confused wanting you
with deserving you.

Tonight I'll practice
saying your name
like it's just another word
for Tuesday.

Details | Saeed Koushan Poem

A cup of longing

Your coffee cup still sits
on the kitchen table—
the one you slammed down
that Tuesday morning,
saying *I can't do this anymore*,
coffee splashing across
the crossword we'd started together.

Week One: I scrub the stain
with bleach and fury,
curse your name
into the empty rooms.

Week Six: I catch myself
setting two plates for dinner,
pause halfway to the cabinet,
my hand suspended
in the space between
habit and acceptance.

Week Ten: The dentist's office calls—
your cleaning appointment
is overdue.
I say you've moved.
The receptionist asks
for a forwarding address.
I hang up,
imagining you somewhere
where no one
remembers your name.

Week Fifteen: I find
your shopping list
tucked in *Beloved*—
milk, oranges, that good bread—
your handwriting
still believing
in our future tense.

*We should make French toast
this weekend*, you'd written
in the margin.
I remember how you'd laugh
when I burned the edges.

Week Twenty: I'm learning
to sleep diagonally,
to claim the whole bed
as mine,
but still I wake
reaching for the shape
you left in cool, wrinkled sheets.

Freedom tastes like guilt.

Week Twenty-Five: The barista
at our coffee shop
stops asking
*Where's your better half?*
I realize I've been coming here
alone for months,
ordering black coffee
instead of your ridiculous
half-sweet lavender oat latte
with extra cinnamon dust.

Week Thirty: I can say
*my apartment*
instead of *ours*
without my voice
breaking.

Week Thirty-Five: I bring
your coffee cup
to the garden,
fill it with soil
and basil seeds.
You always said
I should grow something.

The green shoots
push through the earth—
stubborn as hope,
persistent as the way
you used to hum
while washing dishes.

I water them
with what's left
of missing you,
and discover
I have been growing
all along—

into someone
who can love
the memory
without drowning in it.

*

I pour the last of you
into the earth
and watch it grow.