Drowning, not waving

Neda Agha Soltan…

Speak to me from silent places and I will blind you with tears

Poem for the rooftops of Iran

Friday the 19th of June 2009
Tomorrow, Saturday
Tomorrow is a day of destiny
Tonight, the cries of Allah-o Akbar
are heard louder and louder than the nights before.

Where is this place?
Where is this place where every door is closed?
Where is this place where people are simply calling God?
Where is this place where the sound
of Allah-o Akbar gets louder and louder?

Kismet

As the naked truth of the day breaks through the night, summer begins to breathe its brightest moments. So for now, I am recalling these words from another place, below an Elm tree. At one time it was struck by lightning, but it gripped the soil with such powerful roots, you could dream they ran through the soul of the earth. Tall, grey and blackened by fierce battles; it was a castle made of wood. From there you could see the world and dream how it would end. The crippled arms splintered under each fierce summer, but still they held me in its last moments to heaven. It is gone now, long past its time.

So in turn, I cling to your hand, your soul, like a half remembered moment. I am hanging by my nails, almost like being on a cross, which is only a tree after all. The only difference being it is stripped bare with its heart torn out. The qualitative change of purpose is to inflict pain instead of love. Remember, Judas hung himself from a tree (can you name its colour? I saw it on your lips, somewhere). Only this cross grips the soil with powerful roots, that run through the soul of the earth, into hell. Sometimes I have no nails only blood; it tears my heart, my soul. Your tree crucifies me every night and when I remember the phantom of your kiss, it cuts me like a knife.

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Crisis

Your hands
Like ice, in water
Blue ice

Weather beaten
Rounded, somehow lighter
White satin, stained blue

This angelic
Crystal shard
Splitting my soul

Slipping away
Cast adrift, perhaps migrating
Just ice, on water

Hiding deep thoughts
In your distant polar sheet
Alone

I will carry you for now
Until your heart
Melts

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Better?

If I kiss you where it’s sore, will you feel better, will you feel anything at all?

Walks along the edge of darkness

Do you dream in colour? I once dreamed of a hare, I don’t know why, but it came to me in my darkest moment. From the shadows it looked grey, with petrified eyes that were black like the night, they glinted with silver; it did not pass over the moon. Have you heard this story about hares and their connection with the moon? In the past people used to believe they were magical creatures, who were possessed of a special knowledge, linked in some way, to the mysteries of life and death. Once long ago, in some distant life, I watched the harvest moon move past your home. There were no hares in the garden only bats and stars.

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