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Michael R Burch Mar 2020
Brother Iran
by Michael R. Burch

Brother Iran, I feel your pain.
I feel it as when the Turk fled Spain.
As the Jew fled, too, that constricting span,
I feel your pain, Brother Iran.

Brother Iran, I know you are noble!
I too fear Hiroshima and Chernobyl.
But though my heart shudders, I have a plan,
and I know you are noble, Brother Iran.

Brother Iran, I salute your Poets!
your Mathematicians!, all your great Wits!
O, come join the earth’s great Caravan.
We’ll include your Poets, Brother Iran.

Brother Iran, I love your Verse!
Come take my hand now, let’s rehearse
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
For I love your Verse, Brother Iran.

Bother Iran, civilization’s Flower!
How high flew your towers in man’s early hours!
Let us build them yet higher, for that’s my plan,
civilization’s first flower, Brother Iran.

Published by MahMag (translated into Farsi by Mahnaz Badihian), Other Voices International, Thanal Online (India), Deviant Art, Portal Vapasin (Farsi). Keywords/Tags: Iran, Iranian, Farsi, Persia, Persian, brotherhood, culture, civilization, poetry, literature, poets, mathematicians, philosophers
Maybe it's the obsidian spirit within that wishes to be in her axis spin
A topsy-turvy tango on the turnpike
My heart tries keeping pace
Embarrassment of riches, her smile never saves face
I'm spoiled to witness a heavenly Rorschach test walking
Olympic views sparkling on high
A natural one
Holy smokes
I've seen the evergreens blush red
When she brushstrokes
Her paintbrush-lush hair amidst the background of the Puget Sound
So refreshing
Trapped in her net
Outside the network of jerks
Fishing for lust
Refresh the pages
Reload the look of ages
My type of hype
She's keying in on my keen instincts
Putting wings on my desires
So heights can be admired
So fright can be delayed
In flight, I've fallen.


- Ifeanyi Okoro II
Sam Bowden Dec 2018
Shucking oysters is a dangerous task.
Only skilled, determined hands may apply.
Why so dangerous a task you ask?
Well, let’s see?
There’s the salt, the grit, the unforgiving need...
the slips, the stabs, the you and the me.
Our boats rock along a forlorn sea.

Sitting on the dock of my mind,
the sun's rays slap me sober,
as it refuses to set for seven hundred thousand nights...

Patiently present in the moment, I am, totally attuned to the task at hand.

She's anything but simple,
this complexly succulent woman I've stumbled upon,
Unearthed I have, with my bare hands.
Rugged exterior, jagged edges,
a clear warning for all to see.
But a gorgeous glory awaits the determined, the brave, the patient,
I have faith...

I have faith in such a glory beyond legend,
in such beauty beyond reason.
Just because something feels like a miracle,
doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
For if jade kissed a pearl as it slipped into the sea,
it still wouldn't rival her beauty.

We are a meeting of minds that could unfurl for all time.
As she lines her eyes in paint,
and stains her lips like crimson art.
She's always ready for war,
launching a thousand ships in my heart.

Like the Greek Odysseus,
I've sailed upon contentment's shore,
sipping your wine and eating your grapes,
now I only want more.
Eros, the bittersweetness, is clawing at my door.
I want to live with you in the gap,
between consumption and desire,
between winter's ice and between summer's fire.

Unknowingly I have,
peeled the wall paper from her frame,
where ancient tapestries shown from beneath,
a secret no man could keep.
The scars cut deep into the fabric,
marks of carelessness in love.
The family ties that tear,
the tears of lovers once here,
now there.

Warmth gives way to wind,
and fire gives way to need.
She pulls me close,
then pushes me back,
rocking along a forlorn sea.

And like the sea,
she breathes life into me.
A great roiling tempest of the heart,
with a fury that blows reason from the mind.

Tame, tame, squeeze...    l e t   g o.
Give it...       t i m e.

Still though,
questions fray at the edges of her mind,
and yet,
with the passage of time,
the sea will settle,
the tide will recede.
I have faith in love.
And faith in me.   

Sure footed I am, even as we,
not yet a "we",
dodging rain drops,
dashing through the city,
hand-in-hand, we don't slip.
I think thoughts, but bite my lip.

And while I sip, I think;
“She's anything but simple,
this dandelion seed,
floating in the wind.
Walls up, head down,
a determined doctor,
a surgeon steeled for the journey,
thawing beneath me she is...”

“The most beautiful immigrant I've ever seen;
On the platform of her mind,
she longs for a home, leagues from her homeland,
while I scratch at the dirt of my own.
Do I belong here?
Does she? Do we?
Where is home? Security? Acceptance? Belonging?
Who knows what the futures holds?
Allahu alam, not you or me.”

Uncertain of answers,
is this a mirage or a dream?
I can’t know for sure,
So I take heart in the Unseen.

I crack the oyster open,
and swallow it inside.
I sip life's ambrosia,
and breathe in the sky.

I'll crack The Pearl of Persia,
one kiss at a time.
An ode to patience in love.
According to Ancient Egyptians,
they came from Puru.

Pur is the root word for Persia.

Ancient Egyptians,
Sumerians;
same.
I have no idea why the West refuses to listen to Hindoos on the matter of religion and it's origin.
My army snakes the mountain-tops
as fields and valleys rent,
The first to ever wear the crown;
laws of nature -bent.

Mother was my wife as well; she as me, a god.
Appearing again 'in-the-end'...
Apocalypse; I am the king
-******!
******(Nemen + Rud) German and Celtic. "Take," and "Red," ergo the Hebrew translation; "Taker of Blood." Sargon(Sar + Gun) Sumerian, "Serpent," and "Twisting/writhing," snaking; the snaking serpent. An epithet describing the sight of his army moving over the landscape. Serpent is Dragon and Dragon is King therefore the, "head," of the "serpent," or "writhing column of soldiers," is The King; Sargon.
(For A.K.)

With her aesthetic psalms carved in this skin of mine
Readily healed with the balm she speaks
I gather courage to fight back my wanting desire
To see her again
When she leaves
I reopen the wounds
To revive pleasurable painful memories
Of her sharp beauty
Cutting deep.
Laughter, tearing through me like
Confetti on her personal new year
Her dancing is confection
Her smile, even sweeter
She doesn't age, she turn the page.
I can no longer conceal or restrict my praise
After all, it is her I worship on her holiday.
-
Ifeanyi N. Okoro II © 2018
Jawad May 2017
~~~~~A PERSIAN RUG~~~~~
           Just like your soul          
Complex and stunning
Piece of art
Woven for years
With patient love
By hands of your
Amazing life
...
It gets the redness
From your lips
The blueness from
Your open mind
The green parts from
Your hazing eyes
The whiteness from
Your shining smile
...
Let me lie there
On this beauty
Let's fly away
High up the sky
Show me around
On a journey
The magics of
'Poetry Land'
~~~~~~~~~PERSIA*~~~~~~~~~
She was from Iran...
Jawad Apr 2017
Dough
On stones,
On fire
Sweat and focus
And swagger
And a cup of tea;
Out comes the crusty
Steaming flatness
The lines are waiting for
With patience;
Few coins
For a treasure!
I wrote this today while waiting in the line to buy some 'Sangak'.
Yasaman probably knows what I am talking about, but
for all who don't, watch this please:
https://goo.gl/zWhxXk
Mozalios Aug 2016
Casting a shadow over this land
A prince and his forgotten sands
Time is a river that flows as the princes stories told
The evening stars from each endless day awaits the prince to come her way
A princess held by the grand vizier
Cursing the prince and his forgotten sands
Pools of dreams beneath the Persian sun
Time is a playground of centuries trying to drag you down
The Persian Prince alone controls how the sands of time flows
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