Month: November 2006 | Mahnaz Badihian Oba

Terrorist
( This poem was born after reading a captured suicide bomber’s interview )

You have changed the smell of our land
The color of our flowers
You changed my name
My new name is terrorist

A name that does not buy me
A loaf of bread
And will never help me dream of
Your green land
I am a terrorist whose scream has become
A gun in the throat of his hands

You call me terrorizing
Because of terrorizing nightmares
In the night of struggle for
A piece of bread

My wandering child
In a dream for home
Runs to the length of dreams
And sleeps behind your bars
In the ashes of his dreams

I am the one who cried for
Broken wings of butterfly
Yesterday

I am a terrorist
That the tears of moon light
Put out the flames of my heart
And the wounds in my heart
Have blocked my lungs
From breathing freedom

And I am so dead
That death is my only
Means of staying alive

M.Badihian 2006

The Love Of Year 2020

I feel I have a Poet lover
Who knows all of my untold poems
When I gave him my last poem
He had read it years ago
My lover is the most important poet I know

He has hundreds of books
Hundreds of amorous and philosophical thoughts
With his poetic sense
Through my dress he sees me Naked
Both my body and my soul
And shows those images in his poems
He steps into my ventricles
involuntarily I hear his steps
In the expansion of my lungs

My lover does not look like anyone or anything
But I know him well
I have not seen him in this town or
In this house
But he is with me every second
I found him many years ago
When I was in love for no reason
Or I needed to be in love
I found him after I woke from a dream
And felt I was crowded
Inside me
In my thoughts
On my skin
Because his imaginary presence suddenly
Took me out of my
And thinking of him
Gave away my loneliness, and a sense
Of belonging happiness and peace

yesterday when the grieving for my mother
Was a small sword poking the vision in my eyes
It did not take long before my lover
Polished my thoughts
And drank my tears
Because he’s in love with me

My lover is not a woman
Is not a man, he has no traits of my
Son or my daughter
Definitely he is not like any one
But surprisingly in my thoughts
He plays everyone’s role
And he plays his role as a lover the best
He promised me before I die
One day he will appear
In front of my eyes
In my room
In my house
In my city
I believe all he says
I swear to him
That he is everywhere
Always.
I do not see any shadows around me!

Translated from Persian by: Mahnaz Badihian

Every morning I wake up
With death next to me
Or in the middle of night
Death is in a window ,a mirror
Or a doorway shoulder to
Shoulder with me watches last night’s rain

Death so kindly smiles at me
Breakfast with Death
A few cups of tea and honey with it
A piece of bread

Death whistles at me
Sings poems to me and I tell him
Of my dreams

From the first day of school
Death does not question me
Listens
We go out together
We ride together
We visit old streets

Death gives ride to a little girl
Which is the most beautiful child
On earth.
We pedal to the mountain creeks
Death reads a poem
Death whistles
Death jokes
Death sings
Rivers, trees, bushes
Become alert and
Night talks to me from me to me.

Death drinks wine
Empties all the glasses.
We are drunk, very drunk
And fall sleep in each other’s arm
Oh,
At night the world is so beautiful
In the arms of Death.

Mahnaz Badihian Oba

Terrorist – by Mahnaz Badihian

The love of year 2020 – by Mahnaz Badihian

Life by Morteza Miraftabi