Shirin Ghobadi - THE MAN IN ME

She kisses me - like water kissing the earth
melting in the palm of my being
nurturing the oasis of my dreams
She circles the ephemeral orb of my essence
Glides like calming clouds -
across the ever changing plateau of my heart;
She deforms and transforms my memory
liberates me from the confines of time
rescues my vessel in the face of debilitating storms
She is a passionate voice, risen from captive, muted stones
that penetrates and cracks the walls of my qualms
She curves and splinters the dimensions of my soul
sanctioning it to expand, to explore
She is a lover and beloved incarnated in a feminine body
that the man in me, worships, assails, conquers, humbles and then recklessly destroys.

Shirin Ghobadi

Shirin Ghobadi - No title

The nature is flawed
its seasons are but a hoax
conjured up by ailing Gods
with rotted judgments and perverted hearts
There is only one gloomy, rainy season
through which we crawl, walk and lastly lie
and a river runs through it
that washes away yesterdays and today
silencing our redemption cries
O if we were to see the sun
Our soul would not be so white, so raw, so resigned.
No, all this is but a rainy season
sans a dry note in our prayers, in our songs
Alas, this too is foolish,; desperate; to reach out to a fading sun
for we are too plain , too primal
to be stuff of all seasons.

Shirin Ghobadi

Shirin Ghobadi: LOVER AND BELOVED

He is like the night , wide, dark
He penetrates my body, my heart , my soul
devours me, grinds me in his dark belly
Yet I stick out like the northern star; a sore sight
exposing and feeding the expand of his emptiness
I emasculate him, yet he calls me “lover”
and encircles his dark arms around my parched bosoms
And, I melt, I surrender before him the lightness of my being
let him flow like a river through me
O – he is the seed of my darkest sorrows,
the bitter sting of long winters of my soul
But without him, I could not plot a course, flower or glow
O – He is my beloved - who charts my soul
and I’m the vessel, the light that lit our course

Shirin Ghobadi