You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.29 AVERAGE
4.29 AVERAGE
Favorites:
- Do You Speak Persian?
- Desunt Nonnulla
- Learning to Pray
- What Seems Like Joy
- Rimrock
- Thirstiness is not Equal Division
- Everything That Moves is Alive and a Threat--a Reminder
- What Use Is Knowing Anything if No One Is Around
- So Often the Body Becomes a Distraction
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
"Unburnable the Cold is Flooding Our Lives"
the prophets are alive but unrecognizable to us
as calligraphy to a mouse for a time they dragged
long oar strokes across the sky now they sit
in graveyards drinking coffee forking soapy cottage cheese
into their mouths my hungry is different than their hungry
I envy their discipline but not enough to do anything about it
I blame my culture I blame everyone but myself
intent arrives like a call to prayer and is as easy to dismiss
Rumi said the two most important things in life were beauty
and bewilderment this is likely a mistranslation
after thirty years in America my father now dreams in English
says he misses the dead relatives he used to be able to visit in sleep
how many times are you allowed to lose the same beloveds
before you stop believing they’re gone
some migrant birds build their nests over rivers
to push them into the water when they leave this seems
almost warm a good harm the addictions
that were killing me fastest were the ones I loved best
turning the chisel toward myself I found my body
was still the size of my body still unarmored as wet bread
one way to live a life is to spend each moment asking
forgiveness for the last it seems to me the significance
of remorse would deflate with each performance better
to sink a little into the earth and quietly watch life unfold
violent as a bullring the carpenter’s house will always be
the last to be built sometimes a mind is ready to leave
the world before its body sometimes paradise happens
too early and leaves us shuddering in its wake
I am glad I still exist glad for cats and moss
and Turkish indigo and yet to be light upon the earth
to be steel bent around an endless black to once again
be God’s own tuning fork and yet and yet
the prophets are alive but unrecognizable to us
as calligraphy to a mouse for a time they dragged
long oar strokes across the sky now they sit
in graveyards drinking coffee forking soapy cottage cheese
into their mouths my hungry is different than their hungry
I envy their discipline but not enough to do anything about it
I blame my culture I blame everyone but myself
intent arrives like a call to prayer and is as easy to dismiss
Rumi said the two most important things in life were beauty
and bewilderment this is likely a mistranslation
after thirty years in America my father now dreams in English
says he misses the dead relatives he used to be able to visit in sleep
how many times are you allowed to lose the same beloveds
before you stop believing they’re gone
some migrant birds build their nests over rivers
to push them into the water when they leave this seems
almost warm a good harm the addictions
that were killing me fastest were the ones I loved best
turning the chisel toward myself I found my body
was still the size of my body still unarmored as wet bread
one way to live a life is to spend each moment asking
forgiveness for the last it seems to me the significance
of remorse would deflate with each performance better
to sink a little into the earth and quietly watch life unfold
violent as a bullring the carpenter’s house will always be
the last to be built sometimes a mind is ready to leave
the world before its body sometimes paradise happens
too early and leaves us shuddering in its wake
I am glad I still exist glad for cats and moss
and Turkish indigo and yet to be light upon the earth
to be steel bent around an endless black to once again
be God’s own tuning fork and yet and yet
When for first poem grabs into your soul and yells, "this is going to hurt" and you respond by inhaling it all. I feel a wave a beautiful poetry coming and Akbar is part of it.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
EVERY DRUNK WANTS TO DIE SOBER IT’S HOW WE BEAT THE GAME
Hazrat Ali son-in-law of the prophet was martyred by a poisoned sword
while saying his evening prayers his final words I am successful I am
successful I want to carve it in my forehead I’ve been cut into before
it barely hurt I found my body to be hard and bloodless as
glass still for effect I tore my shirt to tourniquets let me now be
calm for one fucking second let me be open to revision eternity looms
in the corner like a home invader saying don’t mind me I’m just here to watch you nap
if you throw prayer beads at a ghost they will cut through him soft
as a sabre through silk I finally have answers to the questions I taught
my mother not to ask but now she won’t ask them as a child I was so tiny
and sweet she would tuck me in saying moosh bokhoradet a mouse
should eat you I melted away that sweet like sugar in water like once-fresh
honey dripping down a thigh today I lean on habit and rarely unstrap
my muzzle it’s hard to speak of something so gauche as ambition
while the whole wheezing mosaic chips away but let it be known
I do hope one day to be free of this body’s dry wood if living proves
anything it’s that such astonishment is possible the kite loosed
from its string outpaces its shadow an olive tree explodes
into the sky dazzling even the night I don’t understand the words
I babble in home movies from Tehran but I assume
they were lovely I have always been a tangle of tongue and pretty
want in Islam there are prayers to return almost anything even
prayers to return faith I have been going through book after book pushing
the sounds through my teeth I will keep making these noises
as long as deemed necessary until there is nothing left of me to forgive
Hazrat Ali son-in-law of the prophet was martyred by a poisoned sword
while saying his evening prayers his final words I am successful I am
successful I want to carve it in my forehead I’ve been cut into before
it barely hurt I found my body to be hard and bloodless as
glass still for effect I tore my shirt to tourniquets let me now be
calm for one fucking second let me be open to revision eternity looms
in the corner like a home invader saying don’t mind me I’m just here to watch you nap
if you throw prayer beads at a ghost they will cut through him soft
as a sabre through silk I finally have answers to the questions I taught
my mother not to ask but now she won’t ask them as a child I was so tiny
and sweet she would tuck me in saying moosh bokhoradet a mouse
should eat you I melted away that sweet like sugar in water like once-fresh
honey dripping down a thigh today I lean on habit and rarely unstrap
my muzzle it’s hard to speak of something so gauche as ambition
while the whole wheezing mosaic chips away but let it be known
I do hope one day to be free of this body’s dry wood if living proves
anything it’s that such astonishment is possible the kite loosed
from its string outpaces its shadow an olive tree explodes
into the sky dazzling even the night I don’t understand the words
I babble in home movies from Tehran but I assume
they were lovely I have always been a tangle of tongue and pretty
want in Islam there are prayers to return almost anything even
prayers to return faith I have been going through book after book pushing
the sounds through my teeth I will keep making these noises
as long as deemed necessary until there is nothing left of me to forgive
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
absolutely stunning. nearly every line made my chest ache
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism
Wow wow wow. With every poem Akbar paints a vivid picture. His words jump off the page and demand to be read. Absolutely loved this collection.
“it hurts to even think / about the leak in my brain / where brackish water trickles in and / memory trickles out / with what do I mend a hole like that / answer me / with what.”
“It’s hard to remember your ribs con- / nect to your backbone / until the chill in your chest / reaches around for your spine.”
“it hurts to even think / about the leak in my brain / where brackish water trickles in and / memory trickles out / with what do I mend a hole like that / answer me / with what.”
“It’s hard to remember your ribs con- / nect to your backbone / until the chill in your chest / reaches around for your spine.”