The Luny law - Maryam Ala Amjadi

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’ 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 conjugated something 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 which 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 littler
bits
just to remind myself:
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.

Sept 2001, Tehran.

---

Maryam Ala Amjadi (born 1984) Iran
Source: IOWA Graduate College - The International Writing Program

From: Where Is the Mouth of That Word? by Maryam Ala Amjadi, ‎ Paperwall Publishing, 2022