Two Poems by Elahe Rahroniya

The Wedding of Me and the World

I swear to the fatherly smile of the sun,
swear to the motherly hands of the rain,
swear to the childish freedom of the wind,
to the aged gentleness of the trees,
and to the young happiness of the flowers,
that the world will carry me on its shoulders.
It will take me to the wartorn lands in its arms,
and we will rain at people’s sorrow, our heads on each other’s shoulder.
It takes my hand like mother and passes me over the streets of poverty,
to find a piece of bread and put in each other’s mouth.
It will introduce me to the sun,
until I freeze the picture of his smile in my pupils
and show it to all.
And it entrusts me to the wind
until she teaches me flying without any border.

The world says that the trees
had been grandfathers and grandmothers
who a kind witch
donated to the Earth one day,
to foretell legends
for the sons and daughters of the Earth,
and the children climb up their heads and shoulders.

At night,
the world reads poetry for me to sleep.
Yesterday it bought a cheap chocolate for me
And today it’s going to make me some simple food.
Sparrows come every day,
knock at my home’s door,
and say hello.
I know it’s for the world’s sake
It asked them knock the door
In order that there will always
be some guests visiting me.

Every Sunday
we grab the rope of the church bell
and swing together.
Many believe that ringing the church bell is because of Jesus martyrdom
But the world told me that we chime the church bell
Just because of its beautiful ring!
The word has told me a lot of secrets
But it seems all the secrets are actually the same
It told me the secret of Shias mourning in Moharram
And it’s the delicious food that they donate after the ceremony
and the eyes smile watching at that,
Told me the secret of hunger of the Muslims in Ramadan,
that every sunset they become the guest of God,
and eat a colorful dinner,
and smile.
It told me the secret of Christians’ Holy Communion
that eat the body and blood of Jesus
and glad for being forgiven
come back to their houses
and smile.
It told me the secret of Jews’ Friday nights prayers
That gather together to pray and after that
speak
and smile.

And the water that washes blood and fire
And the sleep that washes exhaustion
And the death that washes sickness
And the sun that makes clean soil of corpses,
makes a warm bed on the Earth,
and put the hands of death in the hands of soil
to give birth to Life.

And in this way I and the world met,
became friends and told our secrets to each other,
and got married,
and I became the world’s bride.

Some parts of “Godzilla in the Margin of History”

For little Godzilla
From Butterfly

Time: The last days of the Mesozoic Era and early years of the Ice Age.
Place: A half frozen land in the Middle East.

… I swear on the softness of the Dog’s tail!
I swear on the powder of butterflies’ bodies,
I swear on the wing of the fly, stuck on the forehead of that old swatter,
that torn swatter,
that I prefer dog to all animals of the world.
Even if rabid,
I will buy a bullet, expensive,
and shoot at its brain.
It deserves to die with a bullet not poison,
and I’ll bury its corpse, with all respect.

My darling Godzilla!
I swear on print of lipstick, I left on the highest stair of your back,
I am the butterfly of your dreams…
………………………………………………………………………
I am addicted, addicted, addicted,
addicted to the blast of madness of explosion,
addicted to the unconscious particles of insomnia,
addicted to the fold of the skirt of the volcano,
and to the pollen of a Fern’s* dress.
Maybe I am depressed,
but I ennoble the Dog!
And I will wag his tail,
beside the holy apostles of Buddha,
And I’ll sniff the white powder of bone,
even if there be no one to love
and dogs
all be rabid.

Godzilla says: “You are crazy! You are beyond psychosis!”
He is afraid of heights.
And he is jealous of me,
he can’t fly like me…

And wow! How much I love flying high!
and the mountain top, smelling cloud,
and a giraffe which cleans its nose with high branches.
And Godzilla…!
Do I love Godzilla?!?
………………………………………………………………………..

I don’t go to demonstrations,
my voice,
and my body are so tiny,
no carnivore can see me.
But I hate to just sit and watch,
I have sympathy,
for squirrels and sparrows,
and for blind, lame cats,
who have soirees in garbage can
every night,
and ennoble plastic bottles.
And for clean dachshunds,
who fear shadows,
afraid to be eaten,
just stand behind the windows,
and shout: “God is great!”*

And the bears–
shooting at their big wide hearts is easy.
And turtles,
who are hunted easily.
And the convicted vegetarian dinosaurs,
who become sandwiches
between the walls of solitary confinement.
I have written slogans
on all the flowers

in my neighborhood,
and have taught them
to fart loudly
when a carnivore passes them,
somehow, its stench
neutralizes tear gasses…

…………………………………………………………
How wonderful it could be,
if the lion
became the forest’s king again
And the sun
on his back*
could melt all the ice.
For years,
we have been cracked by icy wind.
The ice age,
has held many parrots,
captive in the cages.

I have said to the Jasmine tree,
my doorman,
and other flowers in the neighborhood,
if the ice age won’t end,
we shall execute ourselves
altogether.
“Abjection and abasement be far!”*
Great death,
is better than this life!
And I know
if Godzilla hears these words,
he will say: “You are crazy! And you are beyond psychosis!”…
……………………………………………………………………………..
Godzilla is afraid.
He is afraid of spores of hate and anger,
sprouting up
in the ice of our frozen land,
step by step.
He has hoarded meat
in his body,
and I am afraid,
he reports me to save his meat!
I am even afraid,
of my butterfly neighbor.

The Jasmine tree,
my doorman, is in jail.
And my home’s door has no sunshade.
My home’s door every day,
stands by the garden,
fully naked,
and cries, gazing at the street’s penis.
A dumb cry.

We breathe the Oxygen of doubt
these days,
and the dust of hate and anger,
which has made the sky
blinder than before.
We even sprinkle
spores of hate and anger,
on our food
instead of salt.

All of us.
Even the animals,
who believe in carnivorous dinosaurs,
and believe,
God has made us Halal, to be eaten by them.
They call carnivores: “Surrogates of God”

Today two vegetarian dinosaurs
were executed.
Hanged.
And I saw,
in the last seconds,
how their long tails shook…
………………………………………………………

I go to the toilet,
and push hard to shit my tears.
no spell lurks in the toilet.

I have heard that water
dispels all the hidden microphones
but I can’t cry.
Constipation
has hardened my heart and eyes.

I push and push
until hate and anger
come out of my eyes like hail,
hit the toilet bowl,
and break it.
I fill my hands
with toilet paper,
and press it in my mouth,
and scream
from the end of my colon.
The scream
of hate and anger.
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
…The rust
of this sword

has disinfected my heart, Godzilla! ******
Anyone,
who would be Caliphate*
is red to my eyes,
the color of a carnivore’s turban.
Years ago on this day,
Abu Yazid* was born.
Today is his birthday,
The twenty-second of Bahman*. (fire snow month)
Carnivore dinosaurs have worn red.
Vegetarian dinosaurs, green.
Shias* are strangely interested in Ta’zieh*.

……………………………………………………………………………….
We,
more homeless than the “Sons of Israel,”
and more enslaved than Canaanites*,
eat frozen soil
in our homeland.
with no fire.
Now
fire temples are ice-houses, Godzilla.
Huge ice-houses,
but poles don’t embrace us at their summit conference.
Eskimos do not like us.
They behave like rootless people,
roving homeless people,
strangers out of home,
and outcasts at home.

Let’s get refuge in the forest Godzilla!
To Africa!
To Equator!
To anywhere without enormous carnivore.
Where there is sun and tree
And predators just hunt to relieve hunger.

Or, let’s become marine, Godzilla!
Where can we buy gills,
to become marine?

Maybe mermaids embrace us,
Or maybe a warm planet,
which grimaces at the achievements of ice revolution.
And martyr’s blood won’t be used
to irrigate anti-ice plastic tulips*
Where the monopoly of oil wells,
is not in the hands of the Ice ogre*,
and Uranium
doesn’t thicken the buttocks of slut missiles
And Uranium
doesn’t shake the breasts of Al-qaida*,
and Uranium
doesn’t poke the tool of Hamas*,
in the backside of David’s tribe,
and Uranium
doesn’t become the bow tie,
under the long beard of the Taliban*,
and…
Do you know such a place, Godzilla?
…………………………………………………………………

….Godzilla died.
In a long transmutation,
he was converted to frozen meat…
My hand was not polluted
with the blood of God!
They gave me a stereotypical spatula,
to stir the soaked, burnt pot of Communism.

And I washed the spatula without permission.
It was moldy,
in the bottom of the pot,
so that my hands
were deep in God’s blood to my elbow!

Just when I was rinsing the spatula,
God’s blood poured out of the tap,
Shorrrrrrrrrrrr
and penetrated my thin bones
like Rheumatism!
And I could do nothing
just call your name, Godzilla!

Now I am under the shower

Trying to clean the blood
from my bones.
And a fire crown
quenched in Ctesiphon*,
many years ago,
shines on my forehead.

I want to depart for the desert Godzilla.

And wash myself with sand seven times,
to remove this excrement,
this Rheumatism from me.
If need be,
I will quaff sand soup.
And become buried in the depth of Earth.
Maybe after centuries,
I will come out of the ground again,
Great and proud,
like a memorial of *Cat civilization.

Footnotes:

* Caliphate is often applied to successions of Muslim empires that existed in the Arab regions and after attack of Arabs, in Middle East and other occupied territories.

* Ctesiphon was the imperial capital of the Parthian(Persian) Empire. It was the largest city in the world from 570 until its fall in 637 during the Muslim conquests.

* A lion with the sun on his back was the symbol on the Iran’s flag before Islamic revolution of 1979. This symbol refers to the old traditional beliefs of Persians (Zoroastrianism and Mithraism) that the sun is the symbol of power, justice and love.
* Abu Yazid was the fifth caliphate of Islam.
* Twenty-second of Bahman: Bahman is the eleventh month of the Iranian calendar, Islamic Revolution or 1979 Revolution, was established on the twenty-second Bahaman 1357-1979

*Cat refers to the shape of the map of Iran.