Idinraha unshackled...

For my dad

It was not easy for you dad...you were always full of life...nothing was too hard...no place too far...work was a pleasure...the sound of your laughter the way you loved each of us...
the way you hugged us crushing us in your arms.....the way you kissed us on the lips....so much love and such brave expression of love......Your three sons... your three soldiers......

the way you loved Maryam....and of course your pride and joy Reza..........you were ambitious....telling us to come to America early on.....and how you told me not to look back as I left.
I remember how you used to take the three of us to hammam.... sitting us next to each other as you washed us...dried us up......Friday afternoons you wrestled with us on the rug and
we played the Match box game.......

You loved America..... This is heaven you used to say.....and how you wished you had come here earlier..........you know when people hear that you left.....they remember your smile

your sunny disposition....the way you talked......and how hard you laughed........"you got to make people like you " you told us.....and that charm ........the nurses miss you…..

your colleagues..... your nephews and nieces.....and most of all the woman you loved.....in your own way......she broke down and cried......Maryam called me early yesterday... asking

"were is my daddy"...she was persistent.... I told her you are probably looking for a corner lot up there and making new friends........Reza says he just needed to see you one more time

Mohamad trys to reason........"he is in peace" .... then he goes upstairs and cries...........More than anything though if you were watching from up there.... you saw and heard us laugh

reminiscing...... " remember we could not walk with him.....he didn't walk... he ran..... Panj toman Zafar ... you would tell the cab driver as we tried to make our way back home....and walked

Man you got guts.......going after the prettiest gal in town..... Mahmood Barghi .... never knew what hit him......never recovered.......

And somehow the way only you know you raised Eight of us........and we didn't know the miracle of it until we had kids of our own ......barely able to raise two or three...........You should have

written a book.........Mahmood Barghi .... marry his first daughter.....raise eight kids.....send them all to America and do it all by boxing nails .............................

You did all with charm.... working twelve-hour days.........and persistent,....NO was never an answer...........you pushed and pushed and pushed again.....going to school at age of Forty to learn

English....... Man ............you casted a big shadow...............

I think about you and smile.... I see you in Mohamad....Hossein.... Reza and a lot of you in Maryam.............I know we were raised by two people in love..........we were sure about you and

are certain now in how our mother misses you..........I see you in your namesake Ahmad, the gentle one.... your spirit in Arman....your charm in Babak and danny .......I see you every time I kiss my Amin

and Kiana....you taught me how to love them.... my favorite pass time..........I see your persistent in Hanna and your patience in Sania .............I could say Danny is as playful as you were

specially recently........................of course having Hossein Kashi not too far help...you very hallalzade nephew woo looks like you more than your sons and has many of your attributes.

dad you rock....I love you… I see you smiling “I love you more”.

A fall

S: you are quiet, something bother you?
B: don't....... Don't go there.....
S: why.....since when you are afraid of expressing yourself. Tongue tied?!
B: you got the worst timing.....put back your drill and bits.
S:Hm......Don Quixote joins the pedestrians....we are walking today.
B: we have been walking for a long time......I am lost....yet there is a certain calm in me.
S: Maybe that is a natural state for you.......being lost..
B: transitions... It seems ....the trance is over...there is a new territory ahead.
S: Are you trying to justify anything?
B: is there anything to be justified...it's curtain call....intermission maybe.. I have realized
That I have to let go....I am in the middle of a fall .....
S: So just close your eyes........and fall

The poem of fairies and the garden, the blue door.......

Her face , I remember her face
Lost in youth, lines of innocene , supple
Crimson of the life it held...the quiet benevolence
Denying the insurgence , the corruption of minutes, hours

I touched her face... Wide eyed apprehension
The thrill , the touch subtle , butterfly wings flowing in air
The warmth of a breath...the lips that covet....shy brazen, tremble
She pressed her lips soft unsure wanting so much and yet.....

I trespass here where I was once a prince,........
What price youth and the dread of remembrance,
So many ethereal illusions bleeding out of lines, a medley
A spread of of springs bulging reaching ,the fingers, the hands, limbs

There were books, picture books and yet so juvenile, I dreamt in such glory
In hot left languished drenched secluded summers , hours heaving in lazy slumber
Curtain covered windows drenched in sweat, falling against the surface down like beads
The curiosity awaken in urges...the scents soiled images fleeting yet pungent potent traces of steam

..............................................................................

When did I turn my head, was it an explosion, was it loud....
Did I hesitate......impressed by the notions of secrets whispered
Did it look real....no illusions......this quiet turn ....like a day slipping away
I remember colors, green , tall trees.....parsimones ..... White berries

And the Blue door weathered held together by pieces of brass hard solid
They ran inside the garden, I never played...I watched the fairies that nestled
Amongst the branches ....listened when they whispered .... I could feel them stare
And when they disappeared at the end of the garden ......I tried to find a way

Less of him

he falls in and out of dreams
his skin yellow as it is,, soft ...
pulling away from his bones
there is less of him in his eyes....
he lifts his head
forcing a smile......Hi dad, I say....

I like to lay
along his side
put my arm around him
close my eyes and sing him a lulaby ,
as he falls in me

Grey

oh mighty grey......there is such promise to you....not black you are not white, Just grey, mighty grey
Where doubts flourish and compassion survives......not black, not white.

Lover boy ......

We can walk slower....we can not
negotiate time, Beginnings or ends.. a natural accident, a deceiving
dilemma...be still if you Expect me to stay.....be quiet if you want me to listen
.......maybe a walk ...sharing the sound of our footsteps on the sidewalk....
darkness is a blessing when eyes stare ,Tears sooth when it hurts......it hurts

I screamed when you denied me.....It hurts.....it did... Yet there was a
sweetness to your Cruelty...love is not the reason, love is madness dressed
in satins and silks....love is venom Served on ice sweetened with polite
conversations amongst strangers.....love is murder...
A crime in civility ....love is intercourse with death.....
a birth in purgatory.....a madness Devine.

We migrated here, following the birds, barefoot torn...
Youth is such a careless dream
lost in nobility of unknowns and unsaid....desires raging in capillaries
reflecting in soft flesh that hiss heaving and cries-- feed me, feed me
She had brown hair, long limbs , she had blue eyes and
she trembled as my fingers reached her inside, corrupted on scent
of sex, I kissed her happy with my benevolence

I am never lonely by myself....I am learning me....shocked as I am...
I tell myself....you fool...it took you so long ...the fear decipate after
the crash ........the recovery is long yet a wellcoming change ..
I did what was expected of me.....as a man..yet I will never
reach that I expect from me.....-enjoy the process lover boy!
I say....yet I long for mischief .......

Maybe tomorrow!

Let's insist on love
It's lonely and quiet here
Yet let's dream of love
The way you smile thinking of us
As I walk with my hands in my pockets
Thinking maybe tomorrow....

Digging for time

I see the shadow of a man in the distance
Fogged in grey black muffled light, part hidden by
The tree branches, part by a moonless night
It grows clear tall brown black grey figure
Wrapped in his task moving the earth
Digging a whole in deliberate sways
Digg, grab, hold, sway...throw away
Gathering soil and dust
In a pile...and again

I get close enough
To recognize the face
The forehead, the nose, the eye, the stubble covered face
The breath hurling from the nostrils ,decipating in dark
He recognizing my stand comes to halt
"digging for time....we have been at it for long"
he labors saying it loud.

Plowing ahead

I tell myself if I could reach the knob the door would be a passage
Yet there is more involved , should the door stay open or the
The velocity of the force I used to open it should reverse it back to
A close.....

And if I stop here at the threshold of the door and succumb to the doubts
Of the passage and all that stays behind and all the unexpected I would
Come to realize.....is this a beginning or an end.....

I tell myself if I should pass the door with no memory of all is left behind
Just the possibilities of the unexpected and unseen would I be better for it
Would not living with fogs of memories and traces of experiences
Bring a clarity in my perception

The Fire Burns

The waves have settled.... The wind subsided ... I need to step out, outside my head....... Do not need to observe my life , just need to live it with instinct..........It seems the sun would leave the parlor, the curtain will come down and
darkness soothes my senses... it allows me to float with my eyes closed...... float within and fall ....

I feel whole again.... The sutures are getting covered by new skin... fresh and pink... the jagged edges are melding and the the cavities are covered by protean fibers......... The bones have healed though there is a phantom pain that sometimes flows through my bones and paralyzes me , waking me up or bringing me down to my knees..... I could take these little pills for pain to go away and She says if I take them regularly they never come back.....somewhere they get barricaded and left to decimate.....

I have left the room........ I sleep somewhere else and the situation seems so temporary, however I know I would never go back.....In my youth I vehemently avoided branding things as MINE.... it always was the car I use....the house I live in..... never mine.... I barely had claimed me , .........and then it was the yellowed skin......the poison and Coma...... and yet all the reasoning, all the logic,,,,, were not enough.... I put up a good defense and argued my case...........She would not hear of it......

And this burden of years , the crown of normalcy...... This accumulation of alphabets and numbers....the necessity of sunrises and sunsets, all of this, the reluctant son.... the cruel father , paternal yet blind to the sensibility of strangers and anything beyond the green Book of salvation.... oh he could not see ... and if he saw he would not recognize..................

Yes it pains me to be carrying so many faces, so many destinies.....the blind maze, the odor of growing fungus, the green smell of growth... and the blue colds of limits,... this circus... ... batches of eggs, the fertile genitals that survive cohabitation of ordinary and mundane..... this generation following the last in a blind maze....... There is not any individuality in living or death.....

Yet another sunrise and the life that awakens...............folowing the crowd at arms length......... the fire burns............

There's a symphony in my head

There's symphony in my head...the notes, the rhythms, the pitch....I close my eyes and I hear the music.... I close my eyes and I am transported....taken.....such a short distance between living and death.....It is like turning a switch, On...Off , .......as Steve Jobs said.....On.., Off

There is a scene in the movie -Apocalypse Now, where Marlon Brando fills the screen with his shaved head down so you do not see his face and you see his hands coming up as the camera pulls back -Horror, Horror, you hear him whisper while holding his head, there is a flash back to the ceremonial sacrifice of a Bull .....and as the machete cuts the head, and the blood pours.... you see Martin Sheen coming behind Mr Brando coming to complete his mission

You can not tell me that at that moment the death is not welcomed by Mr Brando, it is.......as it was in the--The Last Tango in Paris , the saddest movie I have ever seen.......even at the most erotic points... there is desperation and sadness in the awkward way he pushes himself onto her........again the sadness of the main character is so overwhelming that he is pushing his lover, cajoling her, daring her to kill him........... Mr Brando, a master of subtle movements does not say much however every time he graces the screen the noise is maddening.

Are you involved in your life ? are you living it.....or you are a spectator watching over it....how do you know if you close your eyes, where you are and where you are going..... life is spent is seconds, minutes and hours, days, weeks and months,......yet it runs away so fast if you become conscious of it.....Life should be a distraction......or maybe a series of distractions...like jumping from one column to another ....beware not to catch yourself while you are midair...do not think when airborne ....you do and you fall..

I came across my life the other day walking down Fifth Ave in the crowd, I stopped him and asked him where has he been, where is he going and how, just how could he be so away from me. He smiled, brought his mouth close to my ear......"You have been dreaming my boy....catch the wind ,find me, before I sip out, slip away" . then he pushed me and ran ....

Does the station master ever go away and ........ the ship Captain who lives between two worlds ever know where his home is and ever miss being there...... Bus Stops, Train Station crowds and empties..... the Airports are quiet at midnight..... The birds are migrating south and the salmons braving the currents swim up the river..... Is there an instinct for living and dying...........and can we accept death as an extension or its only a switch...ON...off

There's a symphony in my head... The light opens the stage...The characters walk in and the music come sweet and soothing as the violins play... the men in colorful coats and pants the ladies in beautiful gowns, bare shoulders, necklaces, and golden chains...Up dos and hair done to there...the scent of perfumes fill the air........music pitches higher the flues and cellos, the keyboards and bells chime in.....the characters in colorful coats find the ones in beautiful gowns, bare shoulders.....they dance.....the spectators are mesmerised and then the lights go off.

The business of dying

This floor is tilted, hold on to the walls, the lights go on and off, there is a worm in the system, it is infected and we might
crash.......... are we on schedule, what day is it..... we lost the track of time.... Time....I can never understand time...there is an open season on comprehension of time..... we are wasting it.... trying to grasp how far or how close we are....... Let's stay with the facts, lets stay with what we know, the clarity of seeing objects, good lighting and the necessity of repetition,.... the closeness , the intimacy of familiar, like.. life ...ah.. THAT IS ANOTHER ONE, no, lets just stay with Life in relation to Death.....

We could focus on entrance and exit... yes, however entrance could be only birth and Exit points at death. So the symbols change, how about life....in correlation to birth and Death...... we could call it the stay.... I mean staying within the parameters of Birth and death... inside the equation...within .....am I clear? !

You better get used to my morbid subject...... my father is dying and I need to get my head around it and the only way I can do that is by spelling the whole subject to myself here..... So you could go away... however I need to stay here and I need to know how to reason an understanding.for myself.

Well he has been distant.... no, he has been put.... Since the day my son was born...yes exactly on that day....I left him
not physically ....inside my head he was past and my son was the future and my duty was to go on... I cut most of the arteries, the ones that had survived our relationship....... through out the years... the anger and the frustration, the walls that we built together as we lost the sight of each other...... the man that he was... the son that I wanted to be....the hand that stretched and held for a while and then slipped away.

I was four or five when in the crowd of the Bazaar I lost him.........he found me picked me up and held me while I cried..and I remember the exact moment after the birth of my son when he lost me..... I did cry ..I could not explain why here I was moving on......he was staying.... I had his grandson's hand in mine and we walked away.....The rest was shorter stays...... quiet hellos and missed goodbyes...... across the telephone wire, the awkward silences.... I guess we were both new to this..........................................

There is finality to death. and life though persistent, is so very fragile.......Yes we will go through all the routines..... as properly as possible...... and we get to share our sorrow as private as it is......we are the social animal.... we smile we cry and grieve ...we accept and we object and yet we go on

Where is it ?

I looked in all the draws, in the bedroom......the closets , even the kitchen....
where could it be........ I know it is late and it is dark in here but hey I need
to find it.... No, No .. do not turn the light, just leave me... It could be down
stairs or up and yes..I have lived here long and I know every inch of this house.
right there at the bottom of the stairs is where we stood as my son ran aeound
the house and came back asking if he could do it again...... ... No there was
a wall there ... we took it away for a large dinning room we wanted......... yes
we put hardwood floor everywhere and there by the door is where my daughter
stood at sweet age of five and declared she is going away since our was was
ugly (with all the constructions)! she would stay with her grandmother until the
the house was pretty again. And there, there in the family room our ritual was
to take big white plain papers and bring out all the crayons, glues, glitters and
draw free form, all of us for hours, laying down on our bellies side by side drawing,
putting the colors together, mixing them with the glitter and glue and then proudly
displayed them afterward. Da ddy, Daddy,,, I am artistic like you ... mydaughter
would say with a smile on her face.

Dr Gabriel.........

Hospitals are so sterile......White walls .... hallways.. the smell of infections sour .... the quiet presence of death walking in the corridors.....leaving cold vapor hanging in the air......

He is scared .....his head bent , bones ache... he jerks his head to the side and finds a way to look up.....his pupils lifeless, no motion, looking at you......through an empty window... no recognition.....his head falls back.

Season of loss...... the horsemen are coming dressed in blacks of Apocalypse yielding their swords........I let the drape down.... light is cruel and there should be a moment for us to withdraw......... I here the elevator stops and the bell rings
he is crawling on the floor .......finding his way to the open door. and the vinyl corridor that goes forever in successions of florescent lights.....he is willing toward the elevator and I am thinking would he manage to push the button....

I took a picture of his ventilator, his feeding tube........ as the liquid dark beige moved up within ......I took a picture of all
the tubes and lights.....shiny red numbers going on and off......he was attached and breathing, his eyes closed . mouth gaped open face bones tortured deformed,,,,,, splayed on the bed motionless... I walk toward him, once next to him I rubbed my fingers against his bearded chin............

I think the machines took some of him, warm as he was ........ he has been debriefed and declassified....... ..........and I still wonder would he know which button to push once he crawled in the elevator.......

I will take it all

I will take it all, on a gray morning, where sun eludes the day and curents cold
and bare blow amongst the trees naked of their barks browned dark, on a day
not clear I come amongst the living, bleeding death.

I come with my fangs cutting through the flesh boned fingers sharp as blades,
my eyes hollowed in their sockets , sunken fiery red, mischief on my mind, horror
in my head, I come to take with my critters smalll and large my crows black and
loud, vultures - prophets of pestilence, hyinas crazed by the scent of rotting flesh, my
possies, my peers, souls lost between purgatory and hell

...........................................

]]> It's cold here, my skin against the slab of stone, yet it's colder inside of me where there
was a beating heart, we grow distant in crowded lives, abundance of noise and all the
Distractions of our daily deities, we decay in corrupting morsels, flesh and bone and the
death, the quiet mercurial death we carry within us, the scent of life