A new poem by brigade member Mahnaz Badihian

Red as Poems of Jack Hirschman in SF

Tell me David* what should I write  

For this last poem before the finish line of my MFA

What should I write so you do not step on its tail?

To do surgery on its limbs or even pull its teeth

Or even give it to Dorianne** to kill it!

In that case there are not many more new subjects

I just have to repeat myself on the subject of

Love, sex, food, lovers, loneliness, exile and Recycled Woman

But I am astounded by the vast number of things we can write about

Like the thirsty flowers in our backyard that no one waters

Or about my little dogs dead mother!

See we can scream in style but we will spell the wrong words again

I may learn the art of poetry, but I have still to learn

The language of poetry that speaks of humanity

We have written so many poems in our life

But maybe not enough about hunger and people who witness

The death of their loved ones due to the lack of food, water and medicine

We have not written enough about the big thieves, the heads of governments

Let my last poem be about more urgent issues than my sexuality

Depicting the unheard voice of people in the world who die everyday

In every land by tyrants and wars

I ask myself sometimes this one big question;

What is the use of our poems if it cannot feed one hungry mouth?

What is the use if our poems are not as red as poems of Jack Hirschman in SF

And we are only trying to pull those nonsense lines from the genitalia of white pages

What is the use if we do not understand other people’s pain in this world and

Our poems only sleep between the pampered pages of North American magazines

You are so quiet and mysterious David that one cannot pass

The dark shades of your glasses to get the clear answer and see your poetic thoughts

I can climb on the vastness of each page repeatedly

 Hoping it will take me to the high tower of poetry

 But only then we can see the difficulty one may have to get close to harmony

Let’s get out of our tight, lonely houses and reach out to the poetry of the people.

* David St.John, Poet

** Dorianne Laux, Poet

Mahnaz Badihian