The following poem by Ali Abdolrezaei and translated by Abol Froushan, was recorded live in a performance by Abol at the 'Speakers Corner' poetry readings in York in July 2008.
So Sermon of Society
Should childhood be left to itself adulthood it won’t become
mother’s foot in the door and society becomes
Society’s a road self contained could not
ride over the humps
On the waterfront a foetus alone ninth month expires
out through the door that appears in darkness comes
good and bad labels won’t kiss his temple
cause he’s both and neither
I’m good! How?! I’m bad?! I’m both
and both means one
one that neither is
Grew up on my own consciousness
a bridge on thoughts that surround all around me
come a witness to bear witness……
Ma Ma on a way ma Pa the other
and each ma da[rling] who came said this way
Still the same junction you-less nowhere there
can ear each syllable and not ‘ear
Eyeing the surround all around and seeing not
Me am not a train that on the rails keeps coming and going
Am river! riving my own womb society’s there!
Hate ma gooddeeds so bad I pretend others….
You plain door I’m looking for in darkness
that follows me in darkness till which noon? I’ve reached
ma black and stiff suite of life to me stark nakedness not a bad fit!
thirty years of this road end to end I rived to myself
I was the road, ungoable, and dying this unbelievable
that anywhere on earth is stalking where isn’t stalking superb?
The Cowards! Opening like a door unearthing the tombstone
Disgusted by how much the cheerers
jeered the wind, in ecstasy wind, airing open!
I wish I hadn’t told them!
That is when someone dies they say
in foreign house in foreign land them’s innocence
them Iraniene like me!
life alone in stiff suites they put on well turned out! like me
come we down and this very now up in the same wings
our aimless flappings asleep and dreaming(s)
knowing everyone from each other
unknowing who we are Who?!
People try but won’t happen when they say Nay! Yes, they leave a bit for yeah
No’s ill fitting suite they wear, some joined the décor some wuthering some nothing!
wherein the heart something’s passed by, thought says accept! World echoes their nos
Butting god though!!! they split the two and don’t know that both means one!
forget the one… which doesn’t exist!?
like a wave visiting the shore to come back, mesmerised by greatness this sea!
Ebb and flow
of tide in the womb foetus swimming nine moons! The Moon’s no human being!
riven mad the sea, mothers
pregnant craving salt, why’s the beauty of the moon?
No one asks!!!
riding their plains, they think of little boats! A thought of what to do
they haven’t got, how to be-have they do, they moan!
Should the road bend the cars hoot Hoooooooooot!
Ask not?
I mean the wall which Hegel bore high, was of Hegel’s straw
we don’t live we toy disaster
Have no money!
Courage! When we ask someone in a taxi for town hall?! we have not!
Begotten Elders of a village in progress!!!
Oil!? As much as you wish! `People?! Little pilgrim!
This land knows a lot of no news?
Prophets suddenly ended man alone! And life’s story, everyone writes the way they want not. No map in hand! Mankind has no address!
No one reaches themselves coming towards them who is not! Consciousness is of un
knowing, who knows is a dust bin who doesn’t, ha’swallowed the trash!
Wuthering outside of self locking doors
inside is under siege of a selfless nothing that means everything!
A hand opens its tombstone
that’s caught in another’s door
in yourselves this heaven must run! and see!
Heavy traffic cars in a rage fuuuuuuuumes!
Them’s callin’ Leili!
The earth’s soiled, Leili’s many! Wears love on his head mates her no thought on his head not may be even love! The same paper crumpled tissues that am throwing in the bin!
We don’t kiss! Just bring close the lips don’t fall in each others arms
all in our arms just holdings …
practising this game life killings!
The fellow came to my house one night looked to find him so sly! Would say one thing do another! So surreptitiously he arrived at himself that of his self was hidden…
My girl! I introduce my boy!
My wedded wife this lady This is mine! and that…!
No one is ours they self belong
for a moment Christian a moment Muslim Jewish or Buddhist they are
‘cause they’re none of these
A fugitive from the world selfishly
hunkering in the temple wrestling with fear
fear means dizzy again in giddy
Giddy am!
Responsible for what I write am not, you reading this committed me are!
I’m listening to you while eavesdropping on myself
why do you call the guy walking in himself bad?
The world has welcomed him!
Who are you to say…?
When a guy comes in, side doors say welcome
Why you…?!
We’ve skimmed the cream of waves off the sea front we’re at war with whom?!
engaging the way at the heels an if war ends
we remake masses of if from what?!
ever-ready to defend scheming to attack
each moment we are till when?!
the ones who hover self walk have no step
the road is ambiguous (Tathagata!)
wish you to followed’em don’t ask where? (Tao!)
many are steps ahead Them’s not ahead Them’s lost?
They paid the guy pausing at the door of Paradise: Please come in!
He said: No, the children are coming
No they aren’t! They say where?
Here you outlaw wine
They promise somewhere a fairy is serving wine where?
you won’t open the door they throw the fairy to some far….
The newborn when he fell in the tray shrieked his cry drawn on high
up to teenage reached and continued his cry so it grew and grew
you’re getting old won’t give up?
you jump at each scream that passes by your alley where?
the foetal pose of ‘g’ in strings of thought any lower?!
Stop the alleys! No! They grow human beings
should I be born anew with no choice, before the midwife slaps my footholes
to cry and crying I won’t let them put dot dot dot instead of what I’d love to tell you!
I has one letter and you has three
why not break up?
Alley is not against alley
That which says That I am
The tongue has a quiet in the mouth if it’s stretched its deft hand out
I say again torn up lots sewn little!
Enemies?! we mass produce friends few!
We’ve sold today so tomorrow’s sahib suddenly arrives for what? chasing whom?
Always much later much later than later!
No good!
Lying on our back in the toes of our foes unconscious the thieves arrive
what’s doing what here?
taken off on holiday perhaps a few centuries of solitude
to this life this alley this attic never knowingly coming or going
still not in the arena but
the arena called in on house visit
eye-gouging cutthroat disemboweller
so our corpse won’t bloat and float
I’m bloated! My words are on the tip of every tongue! As they stuck out their tongue at mine they became my wife! Verbs seduced my words, they don’t know writing is a fear! A fear of I know not what to do! I am the poet of grandissimo contradictions! Not for or against society just beyond the thing!
I’m busy directing the girlhood of a poem that one day will disembark from house to house...
I’m in love with ruddy cheeks and …. slapped in the face-cum-no-one like pretty to take my hand for herself?
As many gods as many have this land has skies a have-not!
And may the meaning of Lady be raising this up?
Gentlemen! Never raised my hand for one on anyone!
I’m one of those rare fickle types who prowl around the differences of questions!
I’m the difference between the differences of the world!
A bridge on thoughts that surround all around me
and sometimes I think, thought is a stone that from a distance is thrown towards me
become the landlord of homeless thoughts director missing!
director means the man whose recalls I have!
Should I wish to die I must live I know, but should I die who will bear all this solitude, who?
Tonight my bedroom light won’t go on no one knows why!?
looking at the picture of someone who wants to sneeze they won’t let it who?
in reverse of me this picture is looking for the landlord I wasn’t there?
Didn’t want to withhold wanted to catch it AT CHEewW!
The other night had the air of getting kicked I had called her name it was the wind’s fault! It threw my voice two three meters over till it got in the ear of the girl who came back instead:
Ha! I’ve changed a lot, no!?
was real crass!
Alone she was so alone that even a tramp wouldn’t travel with her I did!
she was a support I was leaning on a vacuum!
us two ever so in love love we didn’t understand means erect!
and be butchered
I didn’t understand I was with you you not there”
just two bedraggled eyes endeavoured your picture
just two hands of nights have stretched to the skies
and yes good no bestowed me lot to good god
Getting old my boy where’s your hair!?
I forgot it at the bazaar, Tehran-like people were dizzy like Tehran on a Saturday
whose Sunday was the disgusted reason of weekdays, in trance one night I transited to the day when I saw you here, when I returned you weren’t like pretty, and my hands caught in your warm embrace I forgot to take off!
Into the other that hard slapped my ear I ran, and happened upon a girl arriving like pretty
My fresh Leila
like a leech
on my right arm
is etched on my identity card
and whichever exam she passed marked F!
but for the ivy climbing ivy the house façade had no hand
wouldn’t come up my street
We’d go to her house, the street and I!
A lit window up there fallen on high
that night tomorrow coughing in South West wouldn’t come
scalping redskins tacked on carry attack a tack
My spouse was shut bathed and showered inside my heart she left!
A pair of hands knotted round my waist she badly forgot to take off she left!
she no longer came round even if the house went round a lot gone not gone!
There the sun had risen to the sky
Tuesday was on the table
in here from behind the window she was prodding their house!
Could hear the vacuum cleaner everywhere!
No show! and her mother showed up and cleaned our house!
Leaves on high tremblings roots in the deep creepings
Freud in depth shovings
Jung yin and yang renderings
motherings, not lovings but upbringings and spewings bringing the children up one by one! Ach so roof tops baskings!
twice prostrate don’t know shame, had taken Pa out of the house one day to return a warm baker!
in through the window came an unbounded hand! lounged around, came to my bedroom, let go she’s not there! what a senseless grapple with myself have I to become human? Is it compulsory? won’t become one!
standing alone everywhere Pa has grown up Ma… Hey Mr! Have you not seen our house!?
should look so I won’t forget listen to this roundabout, the mortar bridge and the fishmongers who sold a youth to Tehran. Should say hi to the motor rickshaw so ma Ma won’t lose ma Pa! to these people going home in their espadrilles looking askance at me one should… How do I look?
in my apartment, myself! a tide of tourists promenading, I have to enter the No Entry! visit the back market, ask the price of mackerel to price the price! So like, like always one must be like everyone like tired I am like always of everyone. I have to in a town that forbids offence offend!
I have to thigh into the Shrine of Ali!
Salaam to Ali resident La Elaha el Allah me resident La Elaha el Allah O residents of La Elaha el Allah, Me La Elaha el Allah La…La!
My voice is warmed by your ear! Anyone who forgets me will abolish you! Me called after this and that! Am not! It’s just to trick the world. These thoughts are all guests in me. The previous and the next poems live! They must go so I tend meself if you want I’ll have nothing to do with you if not I’ll follow you around, I’ve anchored in Anchorage so me Pa can finish this fake
When I arrived I told me Ma I had a dream last night she brought me tea my dream came true!
Had arrived at a simple door that I’m looking for in the dark that followed me in the dark till when…?!
I came back!
In the street the hooting was continuous. In my right pocket hearing was deaf. Sudden screech of brakes, purchased a pedestrian, and shoved it in his trouser pocket and I’m conked drunk on the bar counter! On this same pound note put a plaster on my brow Blood won’t stop!
I have drop by drop from me dripping and have not
My tomorrow’s lost in the week Sunday bored Monday beat Tuesday Sun Moon Mars wed on red nose day guide to underworld, fifth day Guru prostrates numbered days marching snails involuting in nothing!
NOTHING MEANS EVERYTHING
Dictionary Rewrite!
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