WARNING NO (1):
This is not a poem
I’m just trying to ask you
to hear what I’m not saying
and I promise
these tears are not mine
The last time I cried
I was seven
I had lost my lollipop
maybe I was too small to have it
and now I am too grown up for an apple
I’m not even Eve, I know
for that you need three prerequisites:
One, there must be a clown—the very one people
call Satan—to make us laugh loud enough to
wake the dead
Two, you must be very beautiful and preferably
lusty, lusty enough to stupefy your own ribs
Three, there must be a tree
the very one that will become Moses’s rod
for the years to come
to pluck
smell
and…
at last three dots
which end in an “alas!”
WARNING NO (2):
This is a NO PARKING area
relevant or irrelevant
that is not my question
anyway
last night two people got married inside me
and three lunatics
with three ugly mouths
offered me three times as a cigarette to one another
in this chaos
an old blind man
stole me from my solitude
and kissed me three times
for one of his three sweethearts
I still warn you
“NO PARKING”
WARNING NO (3):
People need shadows
shadows need people
not much difference, eh?
But every straight line is not a road
And every road is not straight
Still
Who needs whom?
You should never ask
think
or know that
particularly, when you think
you need to need someone
who thinks doesn’t need to need you much
no, you should never…
WARNING NO (4):
Beware of gravity
Men are born men or saints
saints are happy people
no matter how much an earthling
and from earth they are
gravity has no effect on them
but men live with their eternal pain:
Immortality
WARNING NO (5):
They say
I’m a luny
but I only knock my head
on the wall sometimes
or tear my little finger’s skin into more little
bits
just to remind myself that
“I AM”
when I get a beating
I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry,
I cry
all
these
three-four lines
too
and then
Loves
plays
blossoms
loses
fades
life begins
d i e s
and the nurse feels uneasy
in her white uniform
WARNING NO (6):
Forget all these warnings
Or else you’ll remember things
you've got to remember to forget remembering them
WARNING NO (7):
Forget warning no (6) too.
Maryam Ala Amjadi (born 1984) Iran
Source: IOWA Graduate College - The International Writing Program
This is not a poem
I’m just trying to ask you
to hear what I’m not saying
and I promise
these tears are not mine
The last time I cried
I was seven
I had lost my lollipop
maybe I was too small to have it
and now I am too grown up for an apple
I’m not even Eve, I know
for that you need three prerequisites:
One, there must be a clown—the very one people
call Satan—to make us laugh loud enough to
wake the dead
Two, you must be very beautiful and preferably
lusty, lusty enough to stupefy your own ribs
Three, there must be a tree
the very one that will become Moses’s rod
for the years to come
to pluck
smell
and…
at last three dots
which end in an “alas!”
WARNING NO (2):
This is a NO PARKING area
relevant or irrelevant
that is not my question
anyway
last night two people got married inside me
and three lunatics
with three ugly mouths
offered me three times as a cigarette to one another
in this chaos
an old blind man
stole me from my solitude
and kissed me three times
for one of his three sweethearts
I still warn you
“NO PARKING”
WARNING NO (3):
People need shadows
shadows need people
not much difference, eh?
But every straight line is not a road
And every road is not straight
Still
Who needs whom?
You should never ask
think
or know that
particularly, when you think
you need to need someone
who thinks doesn’t need to need you much
no, you should never…
WARNING NO (4):
Beware of gravity
Men are born men or saints
saints are happy people
no matter how much an earthling
and from earth they are
gravity has no effect on them
but men live with their eternal pain:
Immortality
WARNING NO (5):
They say
I’m a luny
but I only knock my head
on the wall sometimes
or tear my little finger’s skin into more little
bits
just to remind myself that
“I AM”
when I get a beating
I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry, I cry,
I cry
all
these
three-four lines
too
and then
Loves
plays
blossoms
loses
fades
life begins
d i e s
and the nurse feels uneasy
in her white uniform
WARNING NO (6):
Forget all these warnings
Or else you’ll remember things
you've got to remember to forget remembering them
WARNING NO (7):
Forget warning no (6) too.
Maryam Ala Amjadi (born 1984) Iran
Source: IOWA Graduate College - The International Writing Program
