Title: Thy Paradise Lost

Author: Sam Vaseghi

“Thy Paradise Lost” (sibe zende ra bayad har che zendetar kosht) is a collection nine long poems by the deconstructivist Iranian poet Sam Vaseghi, written in the years 1998-2015 in German, Argentinian and Swedish exile. Some of the poems were published earlier in earlier in journals both in Farsi and English, or included in audiovisual virtual performances and film. The volume also includes his long controversial black poem “the discovery of light” from 1998 (written in Buenos Aires), which is known as one of the rare Dark Gothic poems in Iranian literature. The poems of “Thy Paradise Lost” echo impressively social and political conditions in dictatorships (Iran) and post-dictatorship (Argentina).

Thy Paradise Lost

THY PARADISE LOST

A millennium folded, a leaf
burnt. . . and
found the ”void”
as a shelter to spread out the wings
breaking the chains. . .
of wishes — bewildered
”the men of this land sold. . .
the reverence of paradise
for a green banner. . .” silence. . .
sitting lined up like chains, ”skeletons”, close beside the ovens. . .
burning
one after another
is a gift, in hell — ”love” isn’t here, neither ”together” nor with ”nobody”, but pale. . .
burnt. . .
ash grey. . .
(thoughts are bolted, affections are wounded. . .) flowers blossom
in the circulating shape of smoke — a genealogy —, and
in the orange gardens, the knives
are planted
in the anxiety of the heart
of cold ”lands”: the boughs, poisoned,
don’t see a tree,
in the mirrors, and the people’s sky, shredded eyes. . .
the knives of envy. . .
fall from the sky. — hotter, than the deserts of your dreams, this hell —
cries out the brutal centuries of holy verses
in the religion of nightmares.
History sleeps dungeoned in the dark.
Who is here? Where is here?

See film on this poem on: Anti-Poetry