Motionless sky...

What Religion Do You Practice? I sit uprooted, ready to open my mouth for the fire to come out. I feel a dragon is trailing inside my body. I answer polity to a very personal question! 

Having the elements of madness means you are a genius.
Having the elements of madness means you are a genius!
Having the elements of madness means you are a genius?

I can spread my hands and legs free and uncensored. I am enjoying looking at my traces... poetic, delicate, instinct driven. I can play with my craft... clever! I can influence my own climax without hiding in a rabbit hole. I can spit at my own writing without having to bear the pain of humiliation. I can hate these words murderously without fear of others' judgment. I am without love and all rationality or am full of innocence-rated kindness, making love to the prose I write. There is no listener but my own eyes to read and I may ultimately discover a new Sheema without the guilt of infidelity.

Morality challenges my childhood.

he asked: what is it she wants.

I said:

What is it she wants?
Pig noses,
Confidence!
His shoes!
Secret rendezvous

She wants.

It is 5: something in the morning and I woke up to check on the little girl. I am sleepless now. I start reading my e-mails. I have some good ones and then Partow Naderi's . He informs me of Laila Sarahat's death. She was one of the great modernist poets of Afghanistan.
She died in Exile.

A kiss.

Sometimes the creation takes over and the creator loses herself in the imagery creation. Sometimes someone arrives and becomes the creation and then takes over without knowing or desiring to. Sometimes someone like me who writes with her blood and soul cries and loves and laughs with her writing. She jazzes her sentences with episodes of her visions. Some are true and some not so absolute. Then the time comes to say goodbye to the creation and the creator wants to continue the writing. To burst forth the emotions, tampering with the thoughts, with the lust with the song.

She resembles no one and every one and it is hard to simultaneously be both the girl and the woman.

To the woman, he (the creation) represents nothing and the creator exhausted from continues struggle of the girl and the woman wants to stop. The girl continuously tries to convince the woman that he once did represent something.

On my feet, reassuring of the presence.

Say it... say something mean. The worst thing you can say to me. I need to know how bad I am and then tell me something kind... the best thing you can warm me with.

A few days ago an electric power switches off and the after shock is heavy. I could avoid writing about it like sleeping on a hard bed but I have to express these existing emotions. It is good I am also rational or I would dig a hole and hide for a while.

I am not pointing my finger at you... I am exhausted with my own emotional struggles. My own loss, my own... To me you are a child but I am not your mother. I was a giver. Rejoiced? Don�t humble yourself. The ocean is too deep. My spirit is hungry and your words satisfy the hunger. I am never to march to you. I am not here to be taken for granted.

I am already gone.

On my feet, reassuring of the presence and the elegant flight of the pigeons.

Something is melting inside my fingers. It is my heart... after losing her.

Nothing is half-measured. People are connected.

And the story ends.

You are not.

Being and the other.

The world of dreams and the world of reality. They collide and separate but never disconnect. They now embrace one another in sensuality. The warmth and profound feelings in admiration of each for the other. They no longer need to approach. They do not fear abundance or flammability. They are dance partners seeking possession.

I paint my lips red. I make them even more desirable. For a woman who is not fond of
make up and is almost always naked from paints, this is a new way of pretext.

You bring me the expectations?

She never arrives at my dreams. There was only one time... when I was digging mother's grave with hands. Taking her out. Dragging along... I was taking her body to the surface. Kneeling next to her, her skin aged under my fingers' touch. I had to take her back to the grave and then the story repeated itself. I, dragging her out, her body in my arms... aging cold. Finally her Sufi Master stood next to me. She stood facing him naked with her usually serious face. The Master said nine days, nine months or nine years from The Day; she would had died, as we all are one day. She looked at the Master and said The Truth exists and walked back to her peaceful place.

We learn nothing new. We have the source of knowledge in our spirit, as I know now I have always loved you. I speak truthfully of my thoughts my beloved, of my desires, my sensuality and heart. The voice of life, I call it. My voice free at last. Nothing to hold me back. In simple words, I love your smile, your eyes, your hands, your mind, your words, and your thoughts. Simple words absorbing my inexperienced dependency on your attention.

However vivid!

The innocence.

Matina, my Greek artist friend gave me one of Athena's symbols as a gift. It is an Owl necklace presenting wisdom.

Wisdom.

This suffering. This loss of a parent. 

Italian friends:
The wife: We have to buy it for our boys.
Sheema: It's a difficult toy. It was a gift. I wouldn't have had bought it for the little girl. I don't think it is designed for toddlers.
The husband: Ah, Il Difficile. My sister and I used to call it 'The Difficult'. It was difficult to push the shapes in to the box. This is a modern version of that.



....
Sometimes I want you to stand next to me... like you used to. I miss you mother.

Il Difficile.

A funny god you are, God! I ask for the seasons to change. I ask for the Summer to arrive and the Spring dies!

You once said you are the wind! I believe you now.

My beloved,

I am "too much" for your days, I will let you be. I don�t know you to know where to begin or not. I don�t know who you are or have been except for a few things that I have read. It is your words that have driven me to the unknown of your existence and knowing your existence is what I had sought all my life. These rich clouds of your absence is hovering me from the presence of my beloved�s silk-tender hands.

I hear the sounds of rattling snakes at your absence and the darkness falls on my soul. The cry of my heart behind the doors of expressions that I write and my lips that cannot lose their secret.

Allow me to have greater heaven.

Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
And--"A blind understanding!" Heav'n replied.

Omar Khayam

Elham writes: I love your prose poems.
Roger says: You should lay off the Coffee.
I think to myself: Only if they knew.

Elham writes: You remind me of Jo(Josephine) in Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott). Remember you gave it to me to read? I say yes. I remember. I think to myself�I remember the day Maman came home and gave me the new books she had bought me. The Little Women with a black cover. I read it and loved it and gave it to Elham to read.

All these years we have been those little women growing in to a world of unexpected lives. My friends of 20 something years are all little �iranian-women grown in to hardworking professionals. Only if the lives of these little women from a country overruled by a cruel and corrupt government were anything like the peaceful days of Ms. Alcott�s Little Women, then we all were not living in exile, inside the homeland or outside.

And I think to myself: Only if I could tell them about my beloved!

loving you is no sin. it is what it is. we are alike�you are only wiser in the years and purified in words. we both wake up. we eat, we work, we live... only separate. there is no sin in loving you. Strange word: sin. used by the weak... like religion, to fear the true seekers. Sin!

This seditious existence, this voluptuous consistence and fascination, these hindrance thoughts that keep... I from me... I want to dismiss.

I know not how this unknown took place, this persistence of lust sprinkling my soul...

I am torn to pieces from seeking of sweet-blind desire of your love. Distance lands of your unknown.

This awakening.

Do you hear the whisperings? The sound of my exiled heart? The sinful beats of my longing?

Tonight, I want the seasons to change.

Mehrpouya

...one of my favorites.

That I promise you my love. I Will sensualize with my voice as you kiss down between my breasts...


I know I am an adulteress. I don't desire solitude but you. You are my place of worship. Cursed by the gods I am but I fear them not. I wish to pour my soul into your hands for the morning to appear.

and... promises are meant to be broken when tomorrow awakens the night...

unless.

Sweet dreams and dream of me, he said.

I think to my self... dreams never come true
I never got the red shoes... I was 5.
The bombing didn't stop... I was 8.
Mother doesn't return from her grave... I am 31.

I want him not in writings, not in dreams. I want him as the day aches night.

A lightless dawn, if it never happens and he...never knowing me leaves me without a word.

doubt.

then this moment shall last forever, he said.

I will not fight it. I cannot fight it. I embrace my faith. You say it is Karma.

You are right. Relationships do change. As ours perhaps will over time. We may become friends or lovers.

Life goes on and we live and we die and perhaps no one will know this desire and longing that I so passionately feel for you, ever existed. The mystery of you happening to me, you not knowing I was.



Nothing is eternal except for what I feel for you at this moment in time.

what a scandal if he loved me as I, him!

I said: goodbye? goodbye.
He said: NO

My thoughts: His love is my story.

Confusion exists. I don't love him any less. I want to smell his hair under the rain.

he said: Sheema.....


I said: words cut me hard.

Understanding: a cold word.

I write what you can't write, my name: Sheema.

July 21th. 2004


resting shamefree.

Exile

My grandma
A beautiful woman in her younger years
-with long hair and small feet-
sat in a taxi,
and died in the back seat.

surrender

dim light


your eyes open to mine
-black against the white-

blood through the main

stream of love.


Sheema Kalbasi

and they read with their bag packed on their back...

I

I faint from the pain


Not having you

You,
caressing me

in the morning

if.


II

The smell of your hair under the rain... I said.


i like to walk in quiet rain... He said.


III


I touch your lips



writing



hope.


Sheema Kalbasi

The smell of your hair under the rain... I said.


i like to walk in quiet rain... He said.

Your love is my story.

Confusion exists. I don't love you any less. I want to smell your hair under the rain, just.

The first books Dad gave me were OLD MAN AND THE SEA and For Whom the Bell Tolls and from the age of eight, I started reading literature. Today while cleaning my drawers I found the notebook dad had given me to write the numbers and the names of the books.
I look at the first number and the name. It said, The Ten Commandments.


I went to the Vegetable garden. Thinking the little girl may remember me standing in this garden.

The house smells of flowers and basil. They smell of Home.

He kisses me. They smell of you, he says.

The little girl is all dirty again. She has to go to bed soon. I need to finish a translation. Earlier today I listened to the song you used to sing Maman. I miss you. I want to forget.

The little girl is sleep. I have time to brush my hair. In the mirror I look. The woman I do not know.
Maryam writes: You work hard my dear. Roger writes: Your starting to drink Coffee, is part of getting old.
Sepideh calls to see how am I doing.
Elham sends a message: isn't it late to be up so late (she is 2 hours behind.).
My brother says: I love you sis.
P: I love the little girl so much. We are good parents.
The little girl is sleep.
I brush my hair. In the mirror I look. The woman I do not know.

The beloved.

I breathe you so hard that my hair is on fire.

No! Friendships are not eternal. Nothing is eternal. Not family, not friendships, not love, not lust. Nothing... not even the wandering eyes that will read these lines in wonder.

I don't care if you are you and I am I. I am not some exotic flower. Whatever coat you have on, I will put it on to warm me... and the shoes however small... I will walk in them to balance our height difference. You don�t need to convert for me; I have already converted to you. You see I never had a religion to begin with. I was born naked from all religions but your love.

I know that was not the point. I know there is no conversion. There is no coat, no balance, no shoes but the naked truth of me finding you first, not you finding me. You, whom will never know who I was when I was sitting on the white sheets.

Y o u, not b e s i d e m e.

And the words that are already written. The words that are already said, are already felt, and are already gone.

And I try to take them back into my empty bowl of hands. To put my hands on the chest. The chest into rest. The rest in to the heart. The beat back to the soul. The soul, back to what it was before you.

Alas! I am 5.7


Sheema Kalbasi

Sinful bursts of fire...

Some things are not meant to be
my guess is
life is 99% made of painted faces
and just a flat piece of glass.

sheema Kalbasi

Words...

Just got Justin Barrett for the OV. I like his poems.

It's midnight and I am still working!

What is it you say my dear poet?
That I am the god and you are the poet?
Cocoons are broken and have come forth,
What does it matter if you write or don't!

I will continue reading you...


What is a straw in the heart?
Where there comes this sudden blow of light?
Silently a thousand ruby petals of words,
Lift the blood...sipped from the poet to the mouth of god.


Your poetry sits under my eyelashes and the heart is drunken poor.

Busy translating Larry Jaffe's poetry.

In white or black or sighs...

Cutting celery!

Iranian regime and its political corruption!

Orkut Orkut Orkut!

The loss of my mom is unbearable at times...