POETRY

poems of the month

orpheus in soho

a seriously sexy man

fish

measuring my face

old clothes

modern iranian poems

my hero

face at the bottom of the world

perhaps (maybe)

the diogenes sequence

where to store furs

i am and am not:
      fragments of rumi

destiny and destination

the zen of no-enlightenment

the iraqi monologues

already backwards

a light in ruins

separate amputations

the sexy jihad

awaiting the barbarians

the smell of possibilities

ultimate leaves

rejoice in the dog

post-millennium maggot

the book of nothing

confession from belgrade

dispatches from the war against the world

albanian poems

french poems in honour of jean genet

the hells going on

the joy of suicide

book disease

foreground trouble

the transcendental hotel

cinema of the blind

lament of the earth mother

uranian poems

haikai by okami

haikai on the edge

black hole of your heart

jung's motel

the second coming (rebus)

gloss on rilke's ninth duino elegy

wine and roses

jewels and shit:
poems by rimbaud

villon's dialogue with his heart

vasko popa: a shepherd of wolves ?

the rubáiyát of
omar khayyám

genrikh sapgir:
an ironic mystic

the love of pierre de ronsard

imagepoem

 

TRANSLATIONS

 

BETWEEN POETRY AND PROSE

the maxims of michel de montaigne

400
revolutionary maxims

nice men and
suicide of an alien

anti-fairy tales

the most terrible event in history

the rich man and the leper

disgusting

art, truth and bafflement

 

SHORT STORIES

godpieces

the three bears

three albanian tales

a little creation story

waybread

lazarus the leper

 

ESSAYS & MEMOIRS

i am a sociopath

one not one

an occitanian baby-hatch

ancient violence
in the amazon

helen's tower

schopenhauer for muthafuckas

'tranq'

never a pygmy

against money

did franco die ?

'original sin' followed by
crippled consciousness

a gay man's guide to soft-willy sex

the holosensual alternative

tiger wine

the death of poetry

the absinthe drinker

with mrs dalloway in ukraine

love  and  hell

running on emptiness

a holocaust near you

happiness

londons of the mind &
dealing death to the caspian

genocide

a muezzin from the tower of darkness

kegan and kagan

a holy dog and a
dog-headed saint

an albanian ikon

being or television

satan in the groin

womb of half-fogged mirrors

tourism and terrorism

diogenes
the dog from sinope

shoplifting

this sorry scheme of things

the bektashi dervishes

combatting normality

fools for nothingness:
atheists & saints

death of a bestseller

vacuum of desire: a homo-erotic correspondence

a note on beards

translation and the oulipo

the visit

towards the zen of sex

 

PHOTOGRAPHS

introduction

metamorphotos NEW LINK

 

MUSIC

tombeau de kurt schwitters

three movements of melting ice

 

MY PAINTINGS


 

Nuadú, God of War

field guide to megalithic ireland

houses for the dead

ireland and the phallic continuum

irish cross-pillars

irish sweathouses

the sheela-na-gig conundrum

french megaliths

the church of lazarus and the dogs

hell

 

 

'western values'

a small town in france

 

 


 

 

 

THEMEATRIX

 

 

 

 

Doctors kill more people than 'terrorists' do.

Governments kill
a hundred times
more people than
terrorists do.

 

So what's the problem
with 'terrorism' ?

 

 

 

homosensuality

 

 

 

Friends
are those who ask you
how you are
only when they really
want to know.

 

 

 

ZOOPHILIA

 

 

 

this site only


 

 

 

 

anticopyright 2013
Anthony Weir

 

 

 

 

 

NO EXIT

recent Iranian poems

 

 

1. Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000)



NO EXIT


They smell your mouth
to find out if you might have spoken
words of love to anyone.
They sniff at your heart.

Such a strange time it is, my dearest...

And they punish kissing
at crossroads
by flogging.

We must hide our love in dark wardrobes.


In this twisted impasse, in the bitter chill
they keep their fires alive
by burning our songs and poems.
Do not risk your life by thinking!

Such a strange time it is, my dearest...

They knock on your door at midnight,
to smash your lamp.

We must hide our lights in dark wardrobes.


Look! butchers haunt the thoroughfares
with their bloodstained knives and cleavers.

Such a strange time it is, my dearest...

They cut off the smiles from lips,
they cut out the songs from throats.

We must hide our feelings in dark wardrobes.


They barbecue nightingale-tongues
on fires of jasmines and lilacs.

Such a strange time it is, my dearest...

Drunk with his victory,
gluttonous evil has gate-crashed
our funeral feast.

We must hide the word in dark wardrobes.

 


This is how people treat love

 

from
ON THE PAVEMENT

Who was I ?
Who ?
The silenced owl
gone into hiding,
trapped
in the nest
of his own
unshifting sorrow.

 

translated by Anthony Weir

 

 

 

2. Shahnaz A'lami (1921-2003)

left Iran after the Anglo-American overthrow of Iran's first elected leader, Dr Mossadeq, in 1953
and the subsequent BP/CIA-backed coup d'état of the last, some would say upstart, Shah.

 

 

EXILE or THE MAGIC SUITCASE

I took a suitcase with me
- light, so very light:

two or three sets of baby clothes,
a white georgette-silk gown,

a blurred photograph of my mother,
wearing an old-style headdress,

and a complete set of things
for the Persian New Year celebrations.

Let me remind you:
these were what I had -
or rather, what people thought I had -
in the suitcase

with which I left the Land
of the Generous Sun.

My suitcase was -
or rather, people thought it was -
very, very light.

But how wrong they were!

You must have seen the
magic shows
where conjurors
draw from their sleeves
all sorts of things:
birds, rabbits, silk scarves of all colours,
even a crystal pitcher,
sometimes a lump of stone...

fire, water, earth,
flowers, thorns and many other things...

Thus was my magic - empty - suitcase.

Now it seems almost a lifetime
since from inside that same suitcase
I have been taking out the things I want:

wonderful cool springs of Isfahan
and its exhilarating groves,
the richly-coloured autumn in Shiraz
and the fragrance of its orange trees,
the ancient ruins of Persepolis,
the Palace of Princess Shirin,
the poor village of Cham
where they weave carpets
until they're blind;

the tattered dress of Fatima,
a little local girl,
and a bunch of other children like her,
all in the same suitcase.

I take them out,
I sit and talk with them -
they join me in my life.
But the moment anyone appears,
they all rush back to the suitcase,

the very suitcase people think
must be so very light
and almost empty.

When I make my will
I will ask for my suitcase
to be buried with me.
No doubt they will say:
'She was mad
and her Will is madness.
What sort of Will is that ?
Who needs a suitcase
in the world to come ?'

Let them say whatever they like.
After all,
who knows the secret
of the Conjuror of Love?

Is it not true that love is
* God's astrolabe of mysteries ?

 

* a quotation from Rumi

 

translated by Anthony Weir

 

 

 

 

3. Mina Asadi (1943- )

now lives in Sweden.


 

TO ME A RING IS BONDAGE


I don't think of prayer-mats,
but I do think of a hundred paths
passing through a hundred gardens
planted with silk-tassel trees,
Garrya.

I know the direction of Mecca:
it has its place in Contentment,
and I say daily prayers
on the Silk Roads,
to the music of passerines.

I do not know what Affection means,
nor the difference
between one foreign land and another.
Happiness is what I call my solitude,
my home is called Desert
and Love is whatever makes me sad.

To me any currency-note means Wealth;
I designate Blind anyone who picks a flower,
and in my eyes the net
that separates fish from water
is an Instrument of Murder.

I look at the sea with envy
and feel
how insignificant I am.
(Maybe the sea
feels the same
when it joins the great ocean.)

I do not know what Night is,
but Day I understand well.
To me a flowering bush is a Village,
and a short walk in the Memorial Gardens
is Freedom,
and any vapid, meaningless smile is Joy.

Anyone who has a key
is a Gaoler to me,
and I view any thought
ungerminated in my mind,
as a Wall;

To me a ring is Bondage.

I don't think of prayer-mats,
but I do think of a hundred paths
crossing a hundred gardens
full of silk-tassel trees.

 

translated by Anthony Weir

 

 

4. Hossain Tavafi (1980 - )

lives in Tabriz and writes in the Gilaki dialect.




YOU ARE THERE

You are there...
And I'm behind the nameless
bushes of wild berries
What can I give a name to
this high noon of perplexity ?

You are there
by the window
gazing into space
and I'm wearing my raincoat
for travelling

This climate is strange to me
and high noon caresses

Now it is evening
windows closed
and you suggest that
we prepare for the celebration

But it is not the time
Listen to the rain!
You are there
far behind those eyes
turned away from me
saturated

This weather is strange to me
and you are there
looking at the sunset
in perplexity
while I am hidden
behind the unnameable
bushes of wild berries.

See me!

 

translated by Hossain Tavafi and Anthony Weir

 

 

5. Reza Aerabi


HAIKAI


King of Kings
Old oak before
autumn sunrise


 

New moon
Our painful feet -
the scarecrow and I


 

Meal break
The sound of a fly
in a white room


 

Springtime wind
Now I can understand
what my grandmother said


 

translated by Reza Aerabi and Anthony Weir

 

 


 

 

after the Farsi of
Kamal-ud-Din Khajou Kermani

The blood you see
in the setting sun
is the dusky wine
we sit and sip
before we see the bloody sign
that tells us we must
run and run.


and


Another Sufi Poem

There is only one number,
for all numbers become One,
and it, in the space beyond time, expands
to Zero
.


Anthony Weir

 


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