Wingbeats by Shadi Angelina Bazeghi

Translated from the Danish by Katrine Øgaard Jensen.
This is part of our special feature, New Nordic Voices.

 

Rain clouds and fox traces
newly-fledged birds
a pair of rotten cherries hitting the ground
an inevitable detachment, a dry release
the five branches of your fingers
your half-naked, bluelined body
the precise distance between the lines

and darkness descending
in all its shapes

Memory flashes and lapses
— Do I smell moldy?

 

*

 

The descent of darkness, a sinking of the heart

the thirst of time and the thrill of blood
divine contravention
his face in the moon
shining on an otherwise unlit city
Black shrines with string lights in color and framed
pictures of dead, young men
on every street corner

 

*

 

I stop by shrine after shrine on my way home from school, staring at every face
a martyr, young and handsome, with tragedy revealed in his eyes

 

 

……………………………..I stall
……………………………..or I stop
……………………………..like an old watch
……………………………..that can no longer cope
……………………………..with counting any more
……………………………..bloodthirsty
……………………………..seconds

 

 

*

 

— Go the fuck home

Death is an ornament

Death equals new domestic appliances
as compensation for surviving relatives

Death equals American refrigerator with integrated ice dispenser
and ice cubes directly from the door

Death equals Teflon pots, extra ration coupons
shiny sociable kitchens
where you can talk about death equals
new leather couch or hand-woven drapes of silk that
fall in the softest, most delicate of layers

Death is anything your heart desires
in crisp German electronics

but what is my heart’s desire
when met with death’s endlessly young face after face
aside from stopping time?

I insist on obtaining a shred of tragedy before leaving the ranks
and sneaking home against house walls in the twilight
during curfew

 

*

 

The will of my boys keeps me alive
as I practice dying every night
facing the sonic barrier
between bombs and ground defenses
between landmines where young bodies explode
and miles of queues for cemeteries
where parents are handed the symbolic remains of their children
in the form of a sealed crock

 

 

* *

 

 

Feel me, my not yet born
feel me, monstrous lines
I ask you for water and massive darkness
A call to prayer resounds
I walk out to the balcony and call
death by all its names

 

a clear sky, a painful light

 

 

 

and Kamilla’s words: We must love others through ourselves.

 

 

Shadi Angelina Bazeghi, born in Iran in 1974, is a poet, translator, and co-editor of the Nordic literary review KRITIKER. A former Astronomy major at the University of Copenhagen, she graduated from The Royal Danish School of Writing in 2007. Her debut poetry collection Vingeslag (Wingbeats) was published in Denmark in 2015. In 2017, the collection was published in Sweden in poet Helena Boberg’s translation. Bazeghi’s own translation work into Danish includes a selection of the most significant poems by the influential Iranian writer Forugh Farrokhzad.

 

Katrine Øgaard Jensen is the editor of EuropeNow. A recipient of several awards and fellowships, her work has appeared in the Columbia Journal, the Washington Square Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, the Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her translation of Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s poetry collection Third-Millennium Heart (Action Books/Broken Dimanche Press 2017) was recently longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award.

 

Published on April 17, 2018.

Share:

Print Friendly, PDF & Email