Those moments ...

And it is on those moments of desperation that one needs
And it is on those moments of desperation that one needs
And it is on those moments of desperation that one needs
And it is on those moments of desperation that one needs

That one believes
That one stretches
That one bends
That I ...

The Fool for the Full !

The moon was full tonight or it felt like it.

I saw it when walking to the churchyard.
Such a satisfying sight; full and complete.

And as I walked, I remembered, it was still a couple of days to the full moon in October.

I am such a fool for the full that I am a fool in full!

The full moon tonight was no fool;
It was carefully round, and I enjoyed its carefulness!

The Sleeping Gypsy (detail), 1897, Henri Rousseau
I took the photo in 2008 in MOMA.*

*It was hard to be far from New York and this smiling mustached moon in one of my favorite paintings.

Fatigue!

It is raining in Austin!

Another semester has started. The days of the past summer has robbed me of my energy. I was left to start school with nothing but a weak body and a tired mind. I said the past summer falsely, for I am still dragging its heated corpse with me. It is hard to write of daily matters, knowing so many things that we know and living through so many things that is happening to us. So let this post be a short update.

I am in three classes this semester: American History 1920-1941, Post-structuralism, Critical Theory, and the Visual Arts, and Biopolitics of Artistic Creation in Times of Crisis.

During the summer besides some archival studies, I didn’t work much on my own research. I audited two French classes. I gave 4 introductory lectures on the history of art from Prehistoric to Cubism for the Persian Student Society at UT. And as usual I wrote articles for the art column of Peyk, PCC newsletter. The two recent pieces are Francis Bacon: figurative in the age of Abstraction (Peyk 122) and Classical in the age of Revolution (Peyk 123). You can find their pdf version here under the English section.

It is cold; I need something that warms me up inside and out!

The Green Scroll, Austin, July 2009

The Limits of My Sphere!

Burning with the fever that multiplies my fear,
And takes away my hope to the realm of shiver;

I search for the word, but it won’t bring you here,
I look for the shine that is going to disappear,
I force my lips for a smile that is not real,
I roll the dice with alerting fear!

I know, you won’t be here,
When I force the fever to disappear.
And that, alone, breaks the limits of my sphere!

The Dot, Princeton, July 2008

Certain Dates:

There are certain dates,
Which mark themselves on our heart-gates,
Not the birth, not the death,
That these two, are easier and do not hurt!


It is one day before the three-day hunger strike: I walk the narrow path that goes by one of the largest magnolia trees on the campus to yet another meeting.

To another talk on Iran,
On what will be the next heartbreaking news;
On whom among my brothers, sisters and friends are going to take the next accidental bullet in the streets of Tehran; Tehran the city I was born in almost 30 years ago.

I am near the magnolia tree, here the path gets narrower and my thoughts are all on Tehran.
I think of my brother, my mom and my aunt.

Tehran the ugliest city on earth; the city that I cannot live without,
For its vicious rush hours made me who I am today,
For its gloomy dusk, comforted my baby heart in so many of my girlish affairs.
For it is, A unique City, at least in the way it grows everyday, both on earth and in me!

Oh,
If you see Tehran once, only once, it will hold on forever without any price!

I get to the building where we are going to meet. I think of my postponed laundry basket; It was full a week ago! A commercial is playing on TV, showing a happy woman with a bright yellow puffy skirt, holding a basket full of roses, trying to cut yet another rose in her backyard garden.

They come. We meet and the image of the happy woman gardening stays with me.

It is the first day of the hunger strike: It goes by easy. I have a cold but I hang in there. My cat knows something is wrong. He just doesn’t know how long this foodless house will be a part of his life.

On the second day of the hunger strike: I cannot get out of bed. I stay in. I dream. I dream of that happy woman with a puffy skirt.

On the third day: my eyes hurt. I have never drunk so much water in my life. I am shaking.
Someone calls. I cannot answer. Then I wake up. I start to type. My fingers are weak. I write of my dream of that yellow puffy skirt.

I write:
I grew up in Tehran. I cannot be that woman in the commercial, happy with rosy cheeks, picking up flowers from the dreamy garden of her house.

But I wish I could be her; I wish I could go on with my life
I wish there were no certain dates,
That have marked me on my chests.

I wish I didn’t know about the Summer of 1988 and what happened in Tehran; The mass execution of political prisoners. I wish it had not happened to me.

I wish I hadn’t seen 18th of Tir in Tehran; July 9th 1999 Tehran University Dormitory attack. I wish I was not a student then.

I wish I hadn’t seen Neda; the shine of her eyes flying out of the TV screen!


There are certain dates, Which mark themselves on our heart-gates!

I so much wish I could be the happy woman of the commercial, that I can even smell the apple pie baking in the fake kitchen of the TV set.

But,
There are certain dates,
Which mark themselves on our heart-gates,
Not the birth, not the death,
That these two are easier and do not hurt!

Certain dates: they mark you; they make you!

I saw a happy woman on TV with a yellow puffy skirt!
I am not that woman, for so many certain dates have marked me on my chest.

A Strange View of the Capital, Austin, May 2009