for a while there,
i thought you could see---
the shackles on my feet,
the tape on my mouth,
the cloth on my eyes
the truth behind the lies;
the noose on my neck,
the cotton on my ears,
the ropes on my wrists,
the hand pulling the strings.

for a while there,
i almost believed,
but you're just another
false prophet
turning me into a puppet;
using me for your agenda
trapping me into an illusion---
illusion of euphoria.

for a while there,
i thought you could understand:
the truth behind my
coarse hands,
dry throat,
tired eyes,
bulging veins,
hunched back,
parched skin,
pale lips,
and bruised heart,
and shattered pride,
and broken dreams,
and endless tears.

for a while there,
i hoped:
you could listen
as i speak;
you could speak
as i lose my voice;
you could fight
as i lose my courage;
you could upend
the triangle,
as i was stuck scraping
the bottom of the barrel.

sigh---
for a while
there, i saw the sinister
eyes of the bourgeoisie
failing to mask
your avarice,
failing to hide
your dark desires.

for a while
there, i saw the truth
behind your lies:
how you're on the other side
with all the false sympathizers,
mingling with the puppet masters,
holding millions of lives,
toying us in your palms,
treating us as pawns,
as if you are gods
deciding the fate
of us pitiful humans.

for a while
there, i saw it;
the light diminishing,
the shadows expanding,
the hope extinguishing.

for a while
there, i felt it;
the air suffocating,
my body shivering,
the blood flowing
on the ground.

in just a short while,
it ended;
just as how fast
a bullet reaches the head.

Can you face humiliation like house fly?

Every time you shoo it away
it comes back and gently
Kisses you!

the way you love
says a lot about you

but the way you break
says a lot about where you came from

WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES
(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )

I once knew a man
who knew a man

who had seen
F. Scott Fitzgerald

drinking a milkshake
in a drug store

(vanilla or chocolate
he couldn't be sure)

flicking idly
through a magazine

( no he didn't know
which magazine )

in the company of
some blonde.

"I'll never forget
what he said!"

"Let's go to the supermarket
Shelia!" he said.

And that's it?
"That's it!"

His voice caressed
each syllable

as if
he were on stage.

But he was like a man
becoming a manakin

like in that episode of
The Twilight Zone

you know the one?"

In a future that had as yet
to happen.

"I don't know what I had
expected..."

The man who knew the man
who knew the man

who had seen and heard
F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Maybe a Gatsby or
a Gatsby

who had survived the novel's
tragic ending

and wished
he hadn't!"



Here now
at home

Mr. Fitzgerald
sits in his armchair

eating a chocolate bar
checking out next year's

Princeton
football team.

suddenly like a puppet
yanked on a string

he stands up
hand on mantlepiece

like some bad acting
in a silent movie

before falling
to the floor.

He will never
get up.



Nick and Gatsby come
stand by his dying.

So do Monroe Stahr
and Kathleen Moore

even though
words fail them.

Yet they now
more real than he.

Monroe reads
some last scribbled lines.

"There was a flutter
from the wings of God

and you
lay dead.

Your  books
were in your desk I guess

and some unfinished chaos
in your head

was dumped to nothing
by the great janitress of

destinies."

Gatsby
closes his eyes.

I read a poem
about silence
aloud,
sat down,
held my breath,
wrote this.

هر دو بی فرزند هستیم (متفاوت)/we are both childless, differently
——————————————————————————


let us not ask each other or god

the why, just how life worked out

and maybe by a choice unconfessed

~

yet we both lie.

~

you possess thousands of offspring,

tend to their every need, breast feed

them water, special nutrients, stroking

their leaves, worry about their viruses,

you, dying just, a little, when, one rooted

looks up and says, “I am dying mother,

thank you for your love.”


~

my ***** produced two men,

each now, differentially,

lost, lost to me, and daily

privately, in word and wet,

weep my losses, for what

is a man who had children,

but goes down into his grave

gray haired, with none in

attendance to refill the soil

that his grave grayed body

requires to

hide his wasted,

childless

life.