Disturbed

when senses are agitated
when nothing is what it seems
when everything is tested
and failed
I get agitated
on the edge
I am disturbed

I lay next to you
I touch you
but these are not my hands
I kiss you
but these are not my lips
I make love to you
but I am a different man
this is not me
I sigh in pain
I am disturbed

There is despair, there is confusion
there is secrecy, there are unspoken words
unread memoirs, secret communication
disturbing constitutions

would getting by these unsettling events
make up an absolution?
to care or not to care
not to feel
is all I feel
I am disturbed

"Forgive and forget" whispers in my ears
"let it go, let it go" ponders in my brain
"leave it behind..
leave it behind" enslaves my will
my body, my soul, my heart, my trust, my hope, my love,
Are all of these, infected used handkerchiefs?
betrayal a normal mischief?
and today.... just another day?
I am disturbed

"it happens all the time" whispers in my ears
"to everyone, it just happens'' dictates into my soul
am I the "every" one? I've lost my goal!
every simple, normal sucker
who accepts, who forgets
who believes that this is just normal
but I am disturbed

"It is not that important"
"not as you think it is,"
"why do you care?"
"You take it too seriously, it is not that serious"
repeats in my brain
I am disturbed

making love to you I only see others with you
not me, I am barely breathing
barely keeping up with the visions of others
making love to you I fade to gray
I fade to black
I fade to infinity
I am disturbed

Where do I go from here?
where do we go from here?
you seem calm
I am disturbed.

Prague Memoirs 2

It was a beautiful day, September 6th. Around noon I walked onto the Charles bridge, filled with tourists. I chose a specific spot, went to the edge, bent over and tried to locate the place where the current was the strongest. As my eyes froze on the cold river and as my muscles started to shiver and before I was able to do anything someone padded me on the back.

"hello, is that you Payman? Do you remember me?" was the sweet sound of a girl that I met maybe two years prior in a tea house in Prague. "Hi," I stuttered. "I mean yes, how are you? how did you recognized me in this crowd?" my lips were muttering words uncontrollably. "Well, you were the only person without a camera and not looking at the status or the artists but staring down into the river. What were you doing?" She asked as if she was told to find me in the hundreds of passing tourists in one of the most congested tourist areas in Europe.

"I" I stopped a bit then continued "I was going to jump." She laughed "into the river? seriously? what did you do wrong to punish yourself like this? I mean I don't want to intrude in your life but did you do something so bad that you can only forgive yourself by jumping into the river?" She stressed on the word "wrong" bent her head and smiled sarcastically.

"No. I did not do anything wrong. I did not" I kept repeating the last word "I did not."

"well, I am going to have lunch with a couple of my girlfriends we then go out to have drinks and then possibly go dancing in the evening. If you come to your senses and realize that you are not the one to be punished for something you did not do, then come join us and have a fun evening with three loud and funny girls." She then gave me the direction to an authentic Czech restaurant close to the bridge and with a wink said "so in half an hour either a cold beer or a cold river. You choose" and walked away.

I watched her beautiful slender but physically fit body moving gracefully away from me and within seconds she was lost in the crowd. That was like a thunderstruck. Vltava was smoothly passing under the bridge and still calling for my surrender. One does not send an invitation without persuasion. But the shock of Sylvia's words were paramount.

I looked deeply into Vltava, made a gesture with my index finger and talked loud like a strong leader talking down to his troops "No, not me. I should not be the one jumping. You fantastic river, the river of Kafka and Mozart, next time send your invitation to the person who did the wrong thing. I am going to enjoy my life from now on until the time when my breath cannot catch up with my yearnings for life and love and up to the point that I have no more use for this world."

Boy I had fun later on that day.

The bike riders

3 am and the roaring disturbs,
the melancholy half asleep of a man
counting sheep as he measures
the distance between the TV and the dining table
for the hundredth time.

“if only I had a rifle!!”
he murmurs, lost between heaven and hell
lost and found
hurt and in pain
he only finds disgust.

“aah, the one with night vision!”
he visualizes shooting every single
power motorcycle rider
every special guard of terror
on 1000cc engine bikes
that roar in the highway beyond his house
that create terror in his insomnia
every night at 3 am

a glass half full
half empty
with water next to sleeping pills
the glass at the edge of the table
he looks, he feels agitated
would the glass fall?
would it break?
more noise…..aaaaah. no

he takes a strong step
but noiseless as he leaps
he see the ghosts of fear
he feels the roll of a tear
burning down on his chick
and he picks the glass as
he reaches the edge of the table
he adjusts the location
he measures the situation “….ah now that is stable..”

he breathes out a sigh
but the roaring sound denies
any moment of peace
more noise….aaaah

“I’m gonna shoot you all…”
he grinds his teeth
and takes the pill
while he holds the glass with both hands
as he avoids every sharp corner
every horrifying imagination
of sharp objects
rush up to his brain as the pill descends
down, down, down.

His mind ridicules his actions
he slides by the bed
where his beauty sleeps
and he listens to every breath
in, out
“..thank you God, she is still breathing..”
in, out
the family is alive
not kicking, just alive
and sound asleep

But the roaring of the bikes
drill painfully in his brain
its 4 am and another pill
and another glass
half full
half empty
at the edge of the table
and another agitation
grips the nerves
sweeps the logic
and create a jungle of sharp objects.

extraordinary fantasia, fantasy extraordinaire

There is an opening in the dark
maybe not so much so as a glitter of hope
maybe hope itself
When I kneel down to the ground
to put the slippers on my father’s feet
I see God’s feet, I see my creator’s feet
There is a contortion of appeasement on my mind
not a loud laugh, not a giggling shallow high pitched, disengaging ranting
but a satisfied immortal soul who touched God
This is my extraordinary fantasia
extraordinary fantasia
fantasy extraordinaire
There is a cool breeze to keep you content
not me, I am always fuming spewing dirty words
escaping from noises, and loud noises and louder noises
there is no escape for all you know

But to look into my son’s eyes
who is the reason I am immortal
and at the same time is in need of more space
which I cannot. So I squeeze myself back into my shelf
Father is God, My son is my immortality
And I don’t feel any pain
any unused energy is gathered in my brain
To spew out hatered words about religion
false religion, dividing religion, the one that promising thing it cannot deliver
This is my extraordinary fantasia
Fantasy extraordinaire

And I look at ten people who are rowing in a muddy river up the stream
And why ten? First they come to the river then they try to find a dry place.

I feel no pain
I feel no gain
I am immortal
I am blasphemous
I don’t need a priest or a mullah to put my hands in God hands
I am already putting the slippers on my God’s feet
There was a miracle today I call it the good Tuesday
When I learned that God has a lot explaining to do

This is my extraordinary fantasia; Fantasy extraordinaire

Prague memoirs 1

It is sometimes easier to fill your mind with an amalgam of different, inherently unrelated, fast moving and relatively unimportant information that move in a very fast pace. This is easier than trying to put your mind at ease with a simple idea or non what so ever.
The shear number of news and information that is received, reviewed, analyzed and then stored in my brain creates a situation that is border line between paranoia and total mind blockage.
New ideas keep popping up in my brain as raindrops on the windshield of a car passing through narrow winding ocean roads of Ireland. The ideas roll down in great details, from setting up a Persian Alternative Music Radio station to setting up an opposition political party with meticulously planned roles, responsibilities and authorities of each person at every conceivable level; to even considering moving into a convent.

Border line I said? Borders for me are blurred definitions that are defined by hypocrisy as I rant about things that are, and things that have to be.

I need control. I need to have my feet on the ground not on a wet place; not on the slimy, sliding stones on the banks of a little island in the middle of the river; the Vlata. I only fume out words, I rant. I have long discovered that the truth is just an imagined, formulated version of a dream. And my dream……(10 pages missing)…..

There is Roya, the girl in my dream that tells me to take things easy. “Easy?” I ask bewildered. She smiles as her beautiful green eyes glitter in the moonlight. “Easy, I say” she leans to her right and shows me a contract signed by her. I have no idea what the contract is all about. There is her signature on the paper, Roya Rz. Why can't I make up her last name? Maybe I can search for her in facebook and find that someone in dreams is actually for real. But is this borderline? Here in Prague in late April when the river moves so calmly yet so strong!!!

Trucks loaded with goods with ideas, with unknown thoughts are passing by; trains filled with information are following the trucks on the other side of the river bank. I am watching, reviewing, analyzing and absorbing not even worried about my father standing on the other shore awaiting the news of my safe arrival on the island. Is this the “Reality Island?” Is this the shore I was struggling for. Is that my father (only 45 years old in my dream) standing in his leather jacket (if he ever had one) waiting for me to cross the river? Or is reality jammed up and summarized in Roya’s gorgeous smile and her bewildering dazzling green eyes?
I struggled very hard grasping at ropes that connect the two banks of the river, the river was wild on my side, calm on the other side. As I arrived at a rock at the end of the rough and wavy part of the river in darkness, only the vertically installed powerful lights illuminating the Prague Castle were visible.
I passed over the river on ropes locked by my father, on ropes of comfort; with his help. So why am I still so scared…..(5 pages missing)… Roya walked on water just as if it was a puddle when she approached me. Dark water, deep anger, struggle, ropes, leather jackets, fear...oh fear and then the comfort of those eyes.

Why am I still thinking of nightmares? Why do I need so much control on every single act that passes through my observing eyes? Why is Roya so calm? Why and how does she float and walk on water over the river that took so much energy for me to pass? Why is Buddha always facing the door? I am sure I saw him carried on the shoulder of dead Czech anarchists on the other side of the banks of Vltava River.

Vltava is my river. Roya is waiting for me on the island in the middle of the river. What is in Vltava, other than water? Water is life so why is Vltava killing me at the same time as giving birth do me? I am not the bravest man; I never stop but that does not mean that I am not afraid of the untold secrets and dark water.
Information flow is excruciating. Pain is running up my veins. I have to get to the other side, the river is fighting me, and Vltava my friend is drowning me in her cold waters.
Trucks and trains are passing non-stop; I am rolling up and down my facebook page to see what else is new only 3 minutes from my previous check. The information is flowing so fast my eyes cannot keep up reading all of them. Roya is asking me to cool down, says everything is going to be ok, just take a look at the contract. “Contract?” I am so confused. My body is aching; I am wet, tired and emotionally unbalanced as I sit down on a piece of rock in the middle of a raging river that wants to take my life. I am saved but perplexed. When can I cut the umbilical cord to my father? Buddha is being carried on the safe side of the river. Roya is smiling constantly and my brain is about to explode.

Sedition, Sedition

.

In the world of mad religions
It is hard to know the legions
Of everyone renditions
But when we choose a different mission
To change our dire condition
To refute the despotic rule
To refuse the rule of the cruel
There come the screaming morticians
With their temperamental disposition
Shrieking “Sedition, Sedition.”