#30fiyahpoems

[babriyeh]

I wish it were true

That poets can kill a man

With words; poison and honey

In their tongue.

Your memory is already a curse.

Your body a bloated blight.

So die, then;

Become what you already are.

[babriyeh]

The city is the god;

The god is the city.

Immortal and ageless

It accepts no prayers.

Its sacrifices: lineages.

Its beneficence

Its malice

The song on a pilgrim’s lips.

[babriyeh]

A spell can be anything and nothing.

Words whispered, chanted, a prayer.

Rise at the altar of your imagination

Watch the lit incense there: prayer.

Expect no tolerance or friendship,

If you come to them carrying prayer.

The state says what counts as magic:

Provocation! Violence! Prayer!

[babriyeh]

The star

That you know well

Is the star of consequence.

Every child will know their dear stars.

By heart they will touch them

In worlds unknown:

Their stars.

[babriyeh]

We are done with catastrophe.

Done with silence that slaughters

And done with asking kindred to be less.

We are done with illusion.

[babriyeh]

She wears her agal askew

The bangs of coins

Hang across her brows

Anemones bloom

On her keffiyeh

Seven chains of silver

Taweez

Seven chains of silver

On her keffiyeh

Anemones bloom

Hang across her brows

The bangs of coins

She wears her agal askew

[babriyeh]

The prophet works the angel

From within the ekphrasis

Of gleaming bronze,

Ivory, and carbuncles.

Impossible wings,

Wheels of flame,

Enigmatic shadows

Fall across the earth.

[babriyeh]

“I am a mirror for my creator.

She has calibrated the cords,

Cogs and weights of my body.

Composed my essence of

Bone and shell. My purpose

Is to be poetry.”

The alchemical demiurge

Is pleased by her creation.

It knows its place in the cosmos.