Shirin Razavian

Face

Butterfly wings, flower petals
Rose dew and crushed silk
Cherries and peaches, blood and tarragon
Shiraz and Evian, honey and milk
Green silence and screaming purple
Hearing blue, laughter and tears
Love and passion, kindness, compassion
Running mascaras and lipstick smears
Bathing in the moon, baking in the sun
Walking the desert with blistered feet
Calling in the night, echo of nothing
Hallucination in burning heat
Spring rain and winter snow
Midsummer flush, midnight glow
Nights on red alert, bombs and gunshots
Burning books and torn up poems
Dark alleyways and blind spots
Love and hatred, broken dreams
Leaving them behind and starting new
Finding your feet and finding your tongue
Rewriting poems in all shades of blue
My face, my friend, my companion of fall and glory
With all your tell tale scars and lines
Telling the mirror my life’s story

Shirin Razavian
August 2009
London

UNDER THE WEATHER

Once again
I pull on a shell of silence
and cast short spells
of melancholy
over myself.

Heavy rain –
and the thunder speaks
straight from my heart.

My feet are wet –
and my heart goes out
to the lone sock in the muddy puddle,
and my heart goes out
to the cold red hands
of the boy selling fish,
to the cloudy eyes
of the addict looking for shelter,
to everyone whose heart
feels
under the weather.

Shirin Razavian
Translated by Robert Chandler

Come in, said the man

Come in, said the man, whose face was a scar
Come in, he said looking back and smiling
His mouth void of teeth, a gaping vacuum
The alleyway was dark, wooden doors all closed
My heart was galloping, no one astride
Filled with emptiness, a trapped goldfish
Going round and round, like an old record, stuck on a line
There are no answers, there is no reply
My eyes are welling up but I don’t want to cry
People are asleep or are they all dead
Passing a blue mosque and a falling star
His back all hunched up, cheeks bare to the bone
His nose crooked, brows overgrown
White beard all grey, dusty as a moth
Flying in my hair, creeping me out
Rising in my spine something all purple
Something like lava or poisonous froth
He stops by a door of solid stone
Complex writings, threatening and harsh
Letters legible but meanings are unknown
Wheezing and huffing, his breath slow and heavy
He pushes the door, creaking creepily
A sudden breeze blows, out of the dark hole
He chants a prayer, I pass out sleepily

Shirin Razavian
Aug 09
London

Arvin

Held by the pleasure
of being with you,
of your being-to-be
in my womb,

I enter, with you,
each moment’s smell
and touch, with you,
time’s smallest cells

You are the miracle
of late love
connecting me back
to my last green.

You are
the rare chance
of a second chance.

Shirin Razavian
2005

Water Song

Let me see.

How far is it
to the highest peak
of solitude?

to the songs that well
from the throats
of pigeons nesting
between the crumbling bricks
that line the shaft of a well?

to the dandelion clocks
whose message floats
on the autumn winds?

Let me switch on
my loneliness meter:
how many degrees

below zero
will it say?

Below the ice swims the fish of my heart,
golden and hopeful,
and it looks at the sun
as through frosted glass
and laughs shyly in its heart of hearts.

From the grey throats of pigeons
nesting in the well shaft
comes the song of water.

tr. Robert Chandler & Shirin Razavian

The grey morning

Runs its cold delicate hands
On my shoulders
And playfully toys with my dress
The grey morning
Is full of the murmurs of life
The sounds of today
Voices of today
And the silent pains of yesterday
Which nobody speaks of
The grey morning
Is full of the stories of exile
The silver wings of the doves of loneliness
Upon the metallic sky
And the hoary smoke of the cigarettes of uncertainty
Over the coffee cups of unresolved questions
And the dancing of the pupils of eyes
That look from one face to another
In search of an answer
Oh what cold delicate hands
Has the grey morning.

Shirin Razavian
July 2006

TRAIN IN THE DARK

On the road again
of uncertainty and loneliness,
with the world smaller ?(the world less)
every moment.

No way
leads to an end
that is known.

No road
will take you back
to the fern’s green sincerity.

Eyes dusted with dust
and lips puckered
again by the taste
of loneliness;

Your tall, cold,
attenuated shadow
with its woollen scarf
dancing in the wind;

As you look for a train
that might take you
somewhere, anywhere
not here.

Shirin Razavian, tr. by Robert Chandler

Dying young

My friends
Are all dead
The souls
I used to write with
Sing with
The songs of freedom
On the mounts of Esfahan

Those familiar smiles
Knowing sparkles in their eyes

Souls who knew me,
Are now wandering at night
Hovering over the blue mosques
Brushing away the sound of Azaan
From the navy sky of a suffocated town

The sounds
Which throttled the songs of freedom
In our mind
And why would god
Play the devil’s advocate?

Was he not merciful?
Was he not kind?
Did he not whisper softly
In my ears
Sweet lullabies of Erfaan
From the silver throat of the moon?

Did he not gently
Stroke my hair
Through the kind hands of midnight breeze?

Where did I leave him behind?
Where did the devil hide my merciful?

In the grave of some rotten corpse
Of ignorance and need?
In the lethargy of decayed beliefs?
Or in the fire of lust and greed?

My friends are dead
All beautiful and young
But through the silence of the night
Lives on the whisper of their song.

Shirin Razavian
17th July 2003 London

Powerless

Nobody cared then

If we hung from the branch of sadness

And became the bitter fruit of deprivation

Nobody cared then

For the tender twists of young bloom

Struggling to break through and reach the light.

There were men in heavy boots

Stamping on the blooms

Stamping on the grass

Stamping on the soul of youth and beauty

Chanting holy verses

Chanting god’s name

Where kindness should have been the order of the day

And mercy should have painted the souls

While he was watching

Tears streaming down his ancient cheeks

Raining his sadness on the perished blossoms

In the dust and dirt and heat

In the drought of kind tears

Nobody cared then

That we had become powerless

Hovering through the alleys of an eternal night

Unnoticed like ghosts

Of some mythical heiress

Nobody seemed to care.

Shirin Razavian

3^rd April 2006

Last Update: August 2010