Iranian Edition (Vol I) | Poetry by Khashayar Mohammadi | Issue 39 (2021)

The Minaret

 a

l

o

t

u

s

    flower

blooming/

put me on a 

pedestal and watch me recite 

Adhan till I am a moment; 

a gentle silencing of the world around. 

   heads                                turn to the                                        streets, 

the whispers of a generation           being defined. 

   I’ll kneel              at the first monument          and with my voice 

  I divide          the city in two.     I am the definition,     

I am the unwritten howl     

of this                              predicament.

and when the first LED screen 

   cracks under the weight of  a

g     e     n     e     r     a     t     i     o     n

g            e     n    e    r    a    t    i    o    n

g                     e   n   e   r   a   t   i   o   n

g            e     n    e    r    a    t    i    o    n

g     e     n     e     r     a     t     i     o     n

                                         my words             |                  my song 

                                       would have             |                       is translated

                                     faded into                 |                          into

                                                           a

                                                         single hand

                                         beckoning for wine


Dialogue

 

boxwood

boxthorn

violets in four colors

and that coquettish cypress

muse-hand tickling the sky

 

word came:

         the flight of the spirit

         the Aesthetic flight

 

boxwood

boxthorn

violets in four colors

the old man’s newspaper in French

and his head            awfully small

from over here

 

word came:

         the face of the lawful

         the flight of wisdom

 

boxwood 

boxthorn

violets in four colors

ball pit friendships

broken

and mended

 

word came:

         the face of the truthful

         the flight of virtue

 

and years past the playground

divinity become human

in the roaring of Niagara falls

 

word came:

         Hafiz’s nightingale

         is not the one you hear

 

impressions

superior to the natural

Shakk

(Modulation)

 

word came:

existence

has neither genus

nor differentia

 

the deficient

the posterior

the dependent

word came:

         describe this wine

 

an eternity 

lapsed in an instant

of the ideal


Khashayar Mohammadi is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer, Translator and Photographer. He is the author of poetry Chapbooks “Moe’s Skin” by ZED press 2018, “Dear Kestrel” by knife | fork | book 2019 and “Solitude is an Acrobatic Act” by above/ground press 2020. His debut poetry collection “Me, You, Then Snow” is forthcoming with Gordon Hill Press.   

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