A GLASS OF POEM

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A GLASS OF POEM

Poetry by Siavash Zamiran

Translated by Nooshin Aghayan

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Copyright © 2017 by Siavash Zamiran, Nooshin Aghayan

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be
reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written
permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book
review.

Printed in the United States of America

Cover Design: Siavash Zamiran

First Printing, 2017

ISBN 978-1-973-28271-6

Siavash Zamiran
7311 Hoover
Richmond Heights, MO 63117
www.zamiran.net

Translation Note:
T at the end of a poem means the poem has been translated from Persian to
English. Unless, it has been originally written in English.

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For Mehraneh

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6
RED WINE

Just one or two sips

drinking red wine
from your cherry lips
then
wandering in the darkness of your sight
walking all the night
till the dawnT

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FROM ST. LOUIS TO MEMPHIS

There is 300 miles of I-55

between St. Louis and Memphis
there is 300 miles of I-55
between you and me

There is four hours driving

with a 1999 Chevy Lumina
between you and me

There is 12 gallons of gas

and a McDonald's cheeseburger
with a regular medium coffee
with no sugar and half and half cream
between you and me

There is rainy and slippery

and dark and dark and dark I-55
between you and me

There are tens of trucks

and thousands of trees
between you and me

There is 300 miles of I-55

between solitude St. Louis
and your tight and close arms
between cold St. Louis
and your warm kisses
between rainy St. Louis
and your waterfall braid
between you and me...

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YOU ARE A WORK OF ART

You are like a poem

flowing on the words
dancing with the rhymes

You are like a painting

with a blend of colors
on the canvas of your eyes

You are like a sonata

with the notes of your smiles
on the chord of your lips

You are like a ballet

blooming gloriously
in the Renaissance of my heart

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AS LUCKY AS YOU

Who could be as lucky as you?

as your blue jeans
and rose gold hair
and purple polished nails?

You always used to eat

half of your chocolate cake
and then you just drink your iced coffee
you just drink your iced coffee
through the straw
that you hug with your svelte fingers

You used to go on and on and on

that how crazy your life was
and how you weren’t good in your classes
not comfortable with your friends,
parents,
people

But I asked myself,

who could be as lucky as you?
as your blue jeans
and rose gold hair
and purple polished nails?

You complained about your life

which was going to be a disaster
and you were just a moving corpse
and the poorest
and the most luckless girl
on the planet

But I asked myself,

who could be as lucky as you?
as your blue jeans

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and rose gold hair
and purple polished nails?

Meanwhile,
I finished my cake
I slid your leftovers toward myself
and I started to eat them
hearing your words
the only thing that I could think about
was how lucky you were
with your blue jeans
and rose gold hair
and purple polished nails

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EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU

Your eyes are as silent as Memphis cafes

your smiles are as thrilling as Manhattan streets
your arms are as warm as July of Tehran
and your breathes are as fluid as Potomac river
and your smiles are still spread
in the air of cities
which you have lived before

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A BLUE POET

This rainy sky makes me blue

clouds are thick
nothing is see through

Oh! Let it be pouring rain

make it empty of pain
bloated and heavy
is this sky
don’t you know gluttony is just a shame?T

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OUR HANDS UP THROUGH
THE MOON ROOF

It was an open road

it was night
there were stars in sky
the moon was out
the wind was blowing

There was singing

there was smiling
there was caressing
there was no one else around;
just you and I

The moon roof was open

we were holding hands
as put our hands up through the moon roof
into the wind and cold

Your hand was trembling in mine

your hand became cold
your hand became weightless
feeling the wind on it made you happy

There was excitement

we yelled at the top of our lungs
our voices melded with the wind
and cold
and touched the sky

The sky was filled with stars

the stars fixed in their places
as we were driving 80 miles per hour
on the open road

A meteor passed us by in the sky

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"shooting star passed us by" you said
and you smiled a little
and breathed in deep

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MY HEART IN ELIZABETH BOULEVARD

Here is October 2014

my neighbor has a laughing pumpkin
is sitting on stairs
waiting for Halloween
here, the girl who serves me coffee
each morning
is sweeping
fallen yellow leaves

My heart is somewhere else

wandering in dreams
In the boulevard of sorrow and tears
in the old ex-Elizabeth Boulevard
in my hometown, Tehran
in the midst of swirling sycamore leaves
my heart is where I used to walk on dry leaves
having my old running shoes on
I wish I could walk and walk and walkT

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RAILOPIA

There will be one day

when no train comes to the station
to make us apart
and instead
the generous train
will leave us
in serenity
we will walk on the railroad track
and fade away in eternity
where there will be no ends
for the warm word of sharing arms and lips T

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THESE DAMN DAYS

Is it worth living without having fun?

is it good to have a fridge
empty of cream cheese
and a fluffy bun?

How about a pantry without salty nuts

cashews, sun flower seeds in bulks
tell me,
is it worth living
without having your fancy sweet -heart
right beside you on the couch?T

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WHEN I BECOME A FAMOUS AUTHOR

With all my translated books in any live languages

with all my interviews covered by any networks
you'd tell me that you don't love me
what if my fictions would be sold
what if they would become
nominated and bold
what if my pictures were every where
with all my fame and glory
you'd tell me that you don't love me?
pouring sugar into your coffee
stirring your mug and staring at me
you'd tell me that you don't love me?T

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THE STALINGRAD OF YOUR EYES

I believe someday
even your new companions
become rusty useless robots
their warm embraces
become fractured and cracked
like the broken porcelain dolls
and when their kisses get cold
you will be surrounded
at that day,
my army of poems
will be there
guarding you and standing against all odds
my victorious army that beats
all the world wars
my victorious army
that saves the Stalingrad of your eyesT

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A STORY OF A GENTLEMAN POET

Carrying my backpack
hands in pockets
chewing orange gum
I am walking along the highway

Just now some driver stopped and asked

"where is the metro station?"
I showed him the way
such a good and sane guy I amT

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NON-PLACE

None of these people would ever know

how much these streets
these cafes
these venues
these little shops and joints
are missing you
and your laughter
your voice
your eyes

this is only me
who will always have it in my mind
that bitterness and gloom
that last trace of your perfume
which reverberated
in the non-place of losing you
which made the whole terminal
my own eternal place of loving youT

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A STORY FROM 1990S

It was 1990s
I was five years old
Marry was six years old
we just got married for a day or two
by a scrawled paper
signed by her & me
as a marriage certificate

We hid in the basement

very far from the adults’ territory
made a cabin
with worn-out chairs as the walls
and threadbare blanket as the roof

I stole the desk lamp from my dad’s office

put it in our roomy home
as a lampshade in the dining room
we ate chocolate wafers
as our first dinner
and swore to stay together forever...

We broke up though
two months later
after Marry and her family
moved to a city
that I had never heard its name before

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A STORY OF AN EMPLOYEE
BOTHERED FROM INSOMNIA

My ration from the world

is a dark bedroom
with an opened window
into the rain drops
and a mental bed with springs
squealing as mating cats
and a cellphone with an alarm clock
set for tomorrow 7 AM
and an insomnia
following me
as a nomad soul
all over the night

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I WISH I COULD HOLD YOUR HANDS

I wish when I stared at you

I wouldn't see anything blue
deep in your eyes
or found myself
in a foggy alley

I wish I could find

the elongation of love
or the deadened of hatred

deep in your eyes

I can see passages
dark and cold

I wish I could hold your hands

walked through cold allies
in a beautiful day of MarchT

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MY STRAWBERRY BUSH

My strawberry bush
has only one strawberry
which I’ll pick it
and give it
to you

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FOUR SEASONS OF YOU

Kiss me in the spring like a blossom flower

Help me pass the heat of the summer days
with the help of your light laughter
I need your tender hands to touch me
in the gloomy autumn days
and the warmth of your sigh
for my satin nights in the winter

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TIBET OF YOUR GAZE

Let me be enchanted
for years and years
like a Buddhist monk
in the Tibet of your gazeT

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WHEN I WHISPER MY POEMS
INTO YOUR EARS

The best thing you can do

with your lips
is drinking wine
and all I need to do
with mine
is uttering words
whispering my poems into your earsT

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DARK AND DARK SKY OF MY LIFE

As a thunder
you glinted
in the dark sky of my life
and as a thunder
you vanished
in an instant
from the dark sky of my lifeT

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A LONELY PASSENGER

You are a lonely passenger

in an empty airport
in the middle of no where
with a backpack
and a luggage

You meet her in the airport bar

and start talking and talking
and laughing and laughing
and drinking and drinking

You start thinking

she is the one
who you are looking for
to be with her
for entire of your life
and she is the one
who you’d like
to drown in her eyes
her hairs
her smiles
her arms

Suddenly,
she slams your dreams:
“I got to go”
she flies to San Francisco
you fly to Boston
and will not ever
never
see her
anytime
again

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WHEN THE WORLD BECOMES ALRIGHT

When you keep your cold hands

over a cup of hot tea
to make them warm,
when you smile
and make a bun of your hair
That's when
the world becomes alrightT

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CONQUERING THE WORLD

When
marshals conquer soils
with their armies,

investors conquer the market

with their deposits,

celebrities conquer red carpets

with their film releases,

writers conquer novels

with their heroes and heroines

I
conquer your heart
with my poems

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A GLASS OF POEM

Let all of them

laugh at my naive poems

It will suffice me
when you taste them
with your glass of wine
every evening

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DON’T MESS WITH MY TERRITORY

My territory
is a tiny gentleman townhouse
in a deserted residency
near a little university
left alone in the forest
and a Walmart nearby
cold and empty
with sleepy grumpy staff

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THANK YOU

(In memory of Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian filmmaker who died July 4th, 2016
in France)

Thank you Mr. Kiarostami,

Thank you
for enjoying 76 years
of living on the planet...

Thank you for enjoying your life

from filmmaking to writing haiku
from photography to designing posters
from conducting operas to teaching your students

Thank you for "Taste of Cherry",

Thank you for "Olive Trees",
Thank you for your "Life and Nothing More"

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A SHOT OF POEM, A SIP OF COFFEE

Here,
in a gloomy and crowded café
in July 3, 2016
8:35 PM
just before sunset
I sit in the corner
behind the window
and listen
to the slurp symphony of strangers
and watch
the puppetry of horselaughs
trying
to write a poem for you
while my coffee gets colder
and the air gets darker

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MY WINDOWLESS ROOM

For my windowless room in the basement

I drew a window on a white canvas

every day I wrote a new love poem

for a beloved who was never born

Each night I wrote a letter

for a friend from nowhere

I went to the station for welcoming a mate

who would never get off the train

I lamented for a comrade

whose name was never found on a graveT

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