Poetry



Aphrodite opened up and said
Let there be love
Let there be light
When beings hold each other tight
May it burn
It will scorch the earth
Until the core rages against a crashing current
Sizzling at every step
Side by side
The heart abides
To ever broken rule
To hellbent loss it screams
For another
For a revolution of frozen fire



You were the moon
grounded in flawless imperfections
I, the stars
in constant motion
Never to touch
but to always admire
How my life was yours
then flipped
A side never to be seen
revealed

Ever so bright
they shine
Distant with their warm embrace
ao desperately wanted,
far gone
left untouched
Only by the silent chaos
surrounding
engulfing into a
Shadowed home



The weight of water
Over your head
Hold your breath
Fleeting calmness overruns
As memories flood around
Your heart bleeds
Your lungs
Full
You erupt
From the absent coolness of water
The day the Devil prays to god
Is when you will once again flood

Death be known
I am chaos
I am death
I am god



She appeared as sea foam
and burrowed
down into the layers
of earth
of me
Float on as a shell
her voice echoes

But I stayed
I remained stagnant
a pool of water building up
with debris
I could not see without my eyes
the time she echoes to me
I stay

The foam builds and builds
in a pool of water
This is not the sea
I could not see without my eyes
when she echoed to me

Her voice filled my senses
a piercing screech

Shell
Foam
Echo

Shell
Foam
Echo

My senses with hesitation cease
the foam enters my lungs
Oh how I drowned that day
without my eyes



The fish swim through my blood
They breathe in
And out
Occasionally coming to the surface for air

They swim and swim
Their fins catch
Onto my lungs

My blood is gargled and hot to the touch
I imagine they will be released
Through my fingers

As art
As pain
As blurred lightning

I hope to one day know what kind of fish fill my body

With rage
With pain
With life

They must suffer

Stuck in one body
Forever
Are they aware of their singularity
My body is their world
Dark caresses never cease

They will leave a void
Just like i gave to them
A void unfulfilled
As life does



My mattress isn't big enough for me to see
Over the railing

The rain hits the ground
And bounces back with vapor
I look through the grid
Yearning to approach each droplet
But with the knowledge that our meeting must be organic

I look to the rain
As if it exists only to me
It exists as my creation
Why does she follow the agenda of another

When the sky turns red
She falls with violence
Fire trails close behind each drop
But they will never cross paths
As she never looks back to meet his gaze

Until they collapse onto one another
And vanish
Into vapor
She will not know of his desires



Apollo sees the tears of the moon
She weeps and longs
To be patched
Her craters exist in the hands of another
Not in her power
Admired as her own creation
She lives with the guilt of the sun
Knowledge that her beauty is not her own
But anothers
Her pain rips the fabric of space
And vibrates through Apollo’s heart
A hearth that has been left to the same fate



My eyesight shakes
As if it's trying to find the next channel
Fading images of men pointing
Static boxes of blue red and yellow
The ground moves with it
As the car drives by
On its way to the garage



Laughter in front of a conveyor belt
Love and loss with every pass
On and on it comes to last
A fleeting moment
Shadowed through the coated glass
But all the same
Where no one is to blame
A wave hello turns quite mellow
If lost, though, becomes a shame



The rabbit sprints
as each drop crashes
onto the seething concrete
Each car briefly
touches the sky
Until it comes back
to reveal a flood of water hidden
by the dark mass that lay underneath

My mind knows no bounds
to the world that reaches in front of it
But it cowers
into itself
It longs to cower
into you



My back twists
For a moment
As you run from my mind
Socks on the pavement
Each step sticking to the ground
For a split second
You're running away
But with each step you seem closer to me
The willow tree does not move
As your socks stick to the ground
Facing me
From below



Tiny dew drops dance on the grass
As silver mist billows through the breeze
The willow weeps
As her song is shared
With the empty road
We become only what we allow ourselves to
And yet
It seems as though we are never enough
For her leaves

As you leave the empty road
It bustles once again
With the admirers of her tragedy

And still, the garden grows
Where we shared our first dance



I visit Selene every night in my dreams
Until Eros fast approaches
As if I have somewhere to go
The water of poseidon crashes into my face
With the realization that I am back on earth once again
Selene has vanished
And I am left to dissolve
In the freezing current



The fog of midnight sits
hovering above the cold asphalt
All I can see are faint tags
and the makeshift buildings that will collapse
I stand on the dotted yellow line
that extends beyond repair
Has it always been this bright at night?



I smudged the blood around each letter
That circled my neck
Where were you
When my hands
Covered in bloody residue clapped
I’ve gone through ten bars of lye soap
Trying to get through to you
My message washed down the sink
Each letter engulfed in the blood that defined it



Finger guns plastered
In Temple, Texas
December fires
And liars who frolic through the months of May
My window is boarded shut
It shakes at the sound of your voice
As the smoke advances
Into my eyes
Through my lungs



I had a conversation with a squirrel that day
Over a chess board
Two pieces replaced with broken acorns
Who puts a chess board outside
But the squirrel knew
I had seen him earlier
Drinking from the waterfall
We held our gaze
Until he stepped down from the stump
And scurried at the sound of footsteps
The water from the bog only tasted bitter
Five people walked passed
With no care
My friend had disappeared into the brush
There would be more acorns there



The sun frowns at the beam
cast through the rough curves of the mountain
But the mountain doesn't move
she sits
waiting for another
The sun asks her beam

“Why does the mountain not move at the mere sight of you?”

“Oh, but the mountain protects the night sky”

So the moon may sleep
while the world beckons



I have something that the stars do not
I hold it in my mind
The sight of the night sky
And the echoes of the silent brush

I see god in your eyes

I have something that the stars do not
I hold it in my mind
The sight of the night sky
And the echoes of the silent brush



Hesitating autumn
Creeps into the room
With curtains billowing
Too big for their set

You sit on the bed
Facing away
While autumn nears
And warms
Your cold shoulder

How I could watch your shoulder shudder
Through the night
Give one a kiss
Until it turns away from me
It turns its back to autumn



When a light turns on
From the garage of a house, I’ve just walked past
I feel like a child again
In the alleyway of broken glass
And fallen trees
Jumping into the middle
The puddle that reflects my murky dreams
In between the cracks of concrete
That cave into each other
Following a faded white line
The same color
As the light



My heart bleeds for you
My love,
Of autumnal winds
Rinsed in pale sunlight
My heart bleeds for your eyes
Of honeydew spirit

My name finds solitude in your voice

Be still my heart
As it bleeds a river
For the match left unlit
In solitude
My love,
My heart bleeds
For you


© 2021 Bahar Tarighi