MORE TO COME ✍ ✎ BOYHOOD GRACE

I wrote this poem on 1- 16- 11. After ten years of continuous war, which is unheard of in the history of America, maimed soldiers come home, with no perspective for good life or finding a job, or having a good health care to cure their body and soul; many of them are killed, I decided to write the poem "BOYHOOD GRACE".

✍

"Into a world of white washed walls

Where the dead and dying lay-

Wounded with road side bombs, suicide belts, shells, and balls

Someone's darling, so young, so brave...

Wearing still on his pale, sweet face-

Soon to be hidden by the dust of grave-

The lingering light of boyhood grace."

✍

I hoped with the change of regime, we won't have war anymore; we won't lose our young men and women anymore, but as usual I was dreaming. According to my study, in the 224 years of America's History, we have been in war %56 of the time; that leaves us only %44 at peace.

This poem is not published yet; but it will soon.

MORE TO COME ✍ ✎ LOVE, HATE

✍

✍

✍

✍

✍

✍

✍

✍

✍

I wrote this poem on 1- 30 95. It is an old one, but it's still new in my heart.

✍

"I love me when I deal;

Enemy or friend forget to feel.

I laugh at them, try to reveal

The secrets I used to conceal.

✍

I love me when I blend.

Put bad side, find a friend.

Live my life, not pretend,

Gaze at the future to the end.

✍

I love me when I please;

Look at nature, feel the breeze;

Not thinking of misery, but the ease.

Throw bad thoughts out, and seize.

✍

I love me when I blush;

Feel the warmth in the green lush.

Words die in my lips, I hush.

Let me enjoy the moment, not rush.

✍

I love me when I earn;

A moment of peace and learn.

Forget the ugly, the stern;

Is it time to dance and turn?

✍

I love me when I dine;

Good food and pure wine;

Feel the pleasure all over my spine;

Ecstasy and bliss are mine, mine.

✍

I hate me when I dream;

Supplication and thrill are the theme.

The gloomy light is not a beam.

I wake up with horror and scream."

✍

Again when I wrote this one, I have so much hope in human being goodness, but world began changing around me, and I didn't change with it...

"MORE TO COME" ✍ ✎ ✏ ✐ ☀ ☑ NIHILISM

While waiting for my next novel, which I am in the process of writing, I will write some poems of mine so you don't forget about me.

This one is called "NIHILISM". I wrote it in 12- 29- 1995; one of my early one in English language, but one of the one that is close to my heart:

✍

"In the moment of nihilism, the lavish breeze,

Is torn between dark and light in an isle.

All prospective thunders please;

And the only inquisitive man is vile.

Within his absolute vain in darkness;

And the gifts of nature are strewn.

He doesn't see in his spiteful blindness-

Rain, flowers, and a script on the stone.

The dissipative clouds are crowned in white;

Soaring majestically into sunset.

And the mountains near in site

Naked and unrivaled, they are set.

A tremendous sensation, so to speak,

A sumptuous abyss, deep and profound.

The nihilistic exasperation of man isn't unique;

As it has not been for many ages around."

✍

This poem is one of my published one. It received the best poem of the year award by the Library of the Congress.

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen- ☁☁☁The Birth

... like a wall of blood walking towards home.

☕

Two days later, Ariana read not so short, not so long article, hidden some where in page eighteen of the newspaper, that her mother was killed two days ago accidentally by a high power rifle in the middle of demonstration. The article said that they did not know why she was there, since in an interview of some months ago she had indicated that she would never participate in the demonstration. The article had called her dirty names, but they also had mentioned that she was the famous poetess that America film production, the "Great Satan" had made two documentaries about her life. They called her Kafar ( anyone who doesn't believe in Islam, and therefore must be destroyed), since in the film they had seen she had a dog. In Islam religion dogs are impure; and they said that she deserved to be killed; and on and on...

Ariana did not believe in death, specially the death of her mother in spite of what she read.

Her uncle and aunt and Kasra were searching for her, since Neda had left no trace behind. Kasra told them the story of Ariana's phone call and the meeting they had had in Ariana's friend's home. He told them that Neda had left him no phone number, had insisted that her secret stayed secret. "Don't tell anyone!"

Ariana was the one that contacted Kasra after reading that article. She finally saw for the first time Sohrab, her uncle, Maryam, her aunt, Aria, her cousin, and Kasra, the good, old Kasra, her mother's friend and editor. In spite of their extreme kindness to her, their uttermost joy of finding her, their exuberant love for her, Ariana completely refused to accept that her mother was dead.

However, because of all the evidence, the privet burial and funeral, she believed even more that her mother was alive. Neda's family, as sad and devastated as they were because of their loss, were elated to find her daughter. They learned from Kasra how Neda had searched for Ariana all these years and in what intensity. They began connecting the dots about all puzzling things that they had witnessed Neda had done, only after her death; since they never knew anything about Neda's sudden trips, or disappearances. Kasra told Neda's story to her family, the family that were so close to her, yet did not know anything about real Neda. They used to think that she was fine with not having Ariana. Now they were ashamed of themselves that they had not helped her in the search for her daughter.

At this time Ariana felt and understood, once and for all that her mother would be with her always, from now on; and would follow her to the end of earth, where ever fate or destiny would send her. She finally knew that her mother was not that cold hearted woman that her father had portrayed her. "She chose her poetry over you..." Her heart heaved... but now she had come to a divine providence, to an inauspicious place.

It did not matter what her uncle or aunt or kasra told her. She absolutely and categorically denied that her mother was dead. Kasra treated her as though she was his child, the child of a woman she had loved for eighteen years. But Ariana, even though found a true connection with Kasra right away, did not care for anything; she searched and searched. Every time she saw a woman with a dark, long hair, she hesitated, her breath almost failed her. Her father told her that her mother was dead. Her anger boiled and she ran off from her father's home but not before telling him:

"She is not dead, You're dead for me. If you think she's dead, then you killed her!"

She began searching for her, tracing her footstep from the time she had given birth to her to the time she had heard about her death! Her uncle and aunt told her that she looked and acted like her mother. She liked that but still did not think a word that was said about the death of her mother was true. She stopped women in the street that they looked like Neda.

The smuggler that was supposed to take her and Roya out of this chaos and to Pakistan and from there if they were lucky, they would go to America, left without her and with Roya. No one could convince her to go. "I must look for my mother!" Every time that she thought that she saw her mother, her breathing stopped and then became labored, her eyes filled with tears.

✪

"Let me shout, scream and cry.

Break every law and deny.

Look at the bloody sky;

Or the ugly bird in fly.

✪

Let me laugh, smile and try.

See the beauty and glorify.

First I cry, then I try;

Again and again I try when I cry

My black heart makes life dry."

✪

Ariana yearned that what if she had seen her mom before death! She said to Sohrab and Maryam that Neda's death was her fault.

"I am responsible. If I had not called her..."

No one could cure her of this search. One search had ended in order this one to begin. No one alleviated her of this guilt feeling that would live with her from now... And what was her guilt? She thought it was her birth!

"If I had not been born...!!!!"

✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ THE END ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎

UNFulFILLED- Nineteen- ✍✍✍✍ The Birth

... she had the better bargain!.

In the midst of these exchanges of feelings between two friends, their reminiscences about love, romance, pleasure, their secret love affairs their parents did not know anything about; the morning became noon, and hours passed one after the other. Ariana got a phone call from her mother, Mitra. To answer her question if she was going home or not, she said:

"No, mom, I'm staying at Roya tonight."

"Don't stay mad at us, sweet heart. I have no role in any on this!" Mitra was telling the truth. She loved Ariana as if she had given birth to her herself.

"I know... It's always men that do these kind of things. I know that my grandfather and the doctor were involved, too. I've been to the hospital, and finally had gotten my hand on the real truth. I know you just went along; but you didn't have to. You still could have been my mother. I can't even go and scream at these men. My grandfather is dead, the doctor committed suicide. I've heard shortly before he killed himself my mother, I mean Neda, had visited him. I heard that they had a very long meeting. What do you think, mother? Isn't that a suspicious thing to you or not?"

Mitra was silent during the tirade of her daughter. Since the truth was revealed to her last week, Ariana had spent almost all her time at her friends. She had gone home during the day when she knew her parents were not home to pick up things. Now it was apparent that she was crying, that she was shameful. She truly did not have anything to say to her daughter, whose sadness and anger was uncontrollable.

After her mother's phone call, Roya asked her:

"Have you written any poems lately?"

"Yes, I wasn't writing for a while. But I write one after I found out about my real mother!"

"Do you have it with you? Do you want to read it for me?"

"No, I don't have it with me."

"Oh, I know you have photographic memory! Why don't you read it to me? You know I heard that Neda had a photographic memory, too. I read it somewhere."

" I know; It seems that we are very much alike in everything."

✎

"How do I tell the story of pain;

Sorrow on my pale face, or torrential rain?

When at night, all shadows are slave,

Tempestuous ocean is doomed in its own wave,

All protected obscurities in a center turn

Towards the hasty currents, so stern.

✎

In the lonely house of pain abides a poet's heart.

The essence of her poems remains so far apart.

At nights when the night at sea unfolds,

Its vision piles upon each other and scolds.

The Poet begins anther poem, nothing new.

She opens a different path, closes the view!"

✎

Kasra was not very far from a scene of another murder. People around him were saying that some one was shot. But there was no way of an emergency car, or an ambulance to reach to any wounded or killed. They were all left behind, stamped under feet of the crowd as though they were the leaves of autumn season on the ground. It did not matter that most of these dead and wounded had met their makers accidentally, for just being there; but these people who claimed they were Muslim, had forgotten the respect this religion had required for the dead. No, no, they still wanted to be part of this dirty history in making!

Kasra had a feeling that the "ANOTHER MURDER" was her Neda. He knew that a little more ahead there was something besides the riots, burning, destroying, speeches. His heart stopped beating. Somehow he felt that Neda was no more, that almost two decades of being in love with her had come to a screeching halt, or had just begun. But could love begin or end even with death?

When he finally pushed his way to the scene of murder, he saw some men were trying to revive Neda. He covered his face. It was a savage ending for a poet, who had gone through so much suffering. He knelt down in front of Neda's dead body. Somebody screamed from the top of the truck:

"Do you know her?"

Kasra raised his teary eyes and looked at the bearded man.

"Yes, she is my wife!"

"Then Take her away."

She was shot in the back. There was a big hole in front torso of her fragile body. The contents of her stomach were half inside and half splashed on the surface of the street. There was a pool of blood all around her! Kasra picked up the lifeless body and pushed his way through crowd. This time people opened a lane like a narrow alley for him to carry her. Neda'a belongings and part of her stomach stayed behind. He and she, finally together, looked like a wall of blood walking towards home.

To Be Continued

UnfulFILLED- Nineteen- ☄☄☄☄ The Birth

...something so wrong with all of this!"

Ariana was almost pleased with her friend's lecture. She needed to hear that some else besides her noticed the wrong doing, the deceit, the lies, the corruption , and ... had gone to all these since nineteen years ago when he was born in MEHR HOSPITAL. She had a hard time to condemn her parents too much, yet she knew that the things they told her a few days ago could not be true. How a woman with that much feeling, with poetry that made you feel how she felt, naming her first book "ARIANA" that now made sense to her, to be phony. Yes, Roya was right. she had to wait. She had to hear her side.

Ariana, and Roya, were two bodies in one. They had been friends since childhood. They had gone to the same school. They were, but a few months, the same age, even though at this point Ariana was not sure of her exact date of birth; they had gone through the magic of childhood together; and then through selfishness and passion of teenage years. One had fallen in love and off love because of the other had done so. Their families were good friends because of their children not the other way around. Now in a few days they were smuggling out of country with the blessing of their parents together. What attracted one, captivated the other. They always sympathized and empathized for each other but sometimes in a tasteless harmony of manner and a common craving of credence and culmination; after all they were still young, yet mature for their age, and yet again immature compare to older people!

Ariana was thankful that she was with Roya, that she was waiting in her friend's room. Both friends were smuggling. They knew it was the right thing. Their parents told them that it was the right thing. No one with he sound mind wanted to raise their children, even though they were not children anymore, in this chaos and anarchy . They have no chance of going to college, no chance of finding a job, no... They knew this new regime would take away just a little freedom they had. They both knew that in their race, there were some breeds that should leave, should stagger to a different place. Ariana said:

"You know, our little ugly type, weak and stupid, dressed dirty, unshaven, violent, and ready for fight, they all are evils. In fact I call them devil worshipers; they practice it by putting us down, putting someone like my mom down. They think they're clean and holy, but no, no, they're dirty. They think they're fair, but no, no, they're cruel, they're extremely cruel." She paused for a moment and began again:

"Did you see today's paper, not only here in Tehran, everywhere in country, did you see the bodies, the blood, the wounded, the lost children, the dead children? Why are they destroying? What is with burning tires, cars, building? What is the end result of all this? What surprise me more than anything is the women, who are right there and scream for Imam Khomeini. I guess that is their way of ventilating years and years of put down, of oppression, by their men, their fathers, brothers, husbands..."

There was a strange smile on Ariana's face when she said these things to her friend. Roya saw that Ariana's smile shone and reflected a deadly light into her soul. She thought that between the two of them, she had the better bargain!

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen-☫☫☫☫ The Birth

...that came to a play and left without any trace."

Ariana was not sure if the the phone call of the night before was the right thing she had done. She felt so detached from hope, and felt so miserable that began regretting to had made that call. Heartache crowded her mind. "Why isn't she here?" She kept asking herself. " After all these years, now she is so late! I guess my dad was right that she doesn't care for anything but her poetry."

She finally raised her head, where it was between her legs, looked sadly at Roya and said:

"She won't come. She is so phony! my dad is right! how I hurt my mom and dad for this!"

"Come on Ariana! I was also listening last night to your conversation with her. She fainted when she found out it was you on the phone... Don't be like your dad."

"Yes, she fainted; but maybe later she decided if she had lived without me for nineteen tears, she can do it for the rest of her life! But, look, it is two hours has passed from the time she was supposed to be here...I am sure my father is right; she chose her poetry, or as she says in her interviews "my art", over me!"

Roya tried to comfort her friend with her soothing voice, while lighted two cigarettes at the same time and gave one to Ariana:

"You know what is going on in the streets. May be she is stuck somewhere! maybe..."

Ariana had thought about it herself; yet it was hard for her to swallow her mother being late after nineteen years. Her friend found an excuse and left the room momentarily. She went downstairs to call Neda's home. Kasra answered the phone.

"You don't know me! I'm a friend of Ariana..."

Before she was able to continue, Kasra cut her off:

"I wanted to call myself, but she had not left your telephone number for me. She left home four hours ago. You mean to tell me she is not there yet!?"

Roya, all shaken, sighed: "Not yet!"

Kasra ran to the alley and then to the streets. He saw people, he saw the revolutionaries, he saw the crowded streets, He smelled the odor that Neda had smelled. He saw the tanks, trucks, the weapons. He saw the burning, the destruction; the setting fire the cars, trash, tires, even buildings. He saw bloody people, some with superficial wounds, some much deeper; He saw the trace of Neda. "No car can drive in this!" He told himself.

Suddenly he noticed Neda, blue Fiat in a very narrow street. He ran. He touched the hood of the car. It was cold. It was obvious that she had parked the car there a long time ago. He noticed the damages done to both sides of the car. Some one had punctured all four tires and then slashed them. "Why, why the destruction? " He began running again into the main street, right into the middle of the crowd, stepping on people, not noticing all the women with their babies in their arms and toddlers hands in their hands, pulling them, pushing others. They all wanted a piece of this pie! The same man with Uzi, who had talked to Neda said something to him; he did not hear. The crowd was thickening as he tried to find a way to go ahead. The other side walk that a few hours ago was Neda's hope to reach since it had had less crowd in it, now was filled with people. There was no place to go, nothing to do. The odor, the smell, the heat of the bodies, the children, who were left behind and crying! he saw a few of them bloody on the ground being smashed under the feet of this wild bunch. No one cared to pick them up. No one cared to look for their parents. He saw dead people! So much blood, so much odor, so many machines, so many weapons, so many men wearing military fatigues. It appeared that somebody with a hand microphone was speaking only a little ahead. It seemed all the action was there, a speech, a lecture about how bad the Shah was and how this backward religion was going to come and rescue people from evil and sin ;and give them money, food, and work, to make women cover their hair, to have men wear beard; and all these people, that had lost their mind, specially women with their children, were trying to reach where the man at the top of a big military car was talking with his hand microphone. So Kasra decided to aim at where everyone was going, to where the action was; where the bearded man was talking.

☏

Roya returned to her room. Ariana was still sitting on the floor in the same position she had left her. The spirit of mother and daughter haunted Roya with a sudden flashes of the picture of Revolution; and a lonely journey of a mother to see her daughter amongst them. She began to cry. Ariana raised her head and looked at her friend. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

"She left home four hours ago!" Roya said factually.

"So you went to call!?"

"Yes, I did not want to tell you. I don't want you to blame her now that you'd found her. How do you know the story your mom and dad told you is true? How do you know that your real mom was not searching for you? We don't know what they did. Her name is not even in your birth certificate. If they were able to do all these illegal things, we don't know what else they have done. I've always had my suspicion. You don't look like them or act like them. Just don't doubt her until your hear her side. There is something so wrong with all of this!"

To Be Continued