2 Poems by Nasim Basiri

photo by Hengameh Golestan , 1979.

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Can’t Talk

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searching for clues and glimpses

of paradoxical nature of reality

in tales of captivity of streets and valleys

empty of souls

empty of voices

Alas

these maimed and tortured bodies

 can’t

talk

.

Silver Colored Road

.

unable to run

with her shaking legs

and a whole melting sea

in her eyes

.

and the smell of tobacco

is burning her frozen toes

drying off wounds of a frightened mind

thinking of a silver colored road

through her visible skirt

smelling like dust and blood

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Nasim Basiri is an Iranian poet and activist from Borazjan in the south of Iran. She currently lives in the United States where she works and studies at Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University. Nasim’s poetry and other literary works depict the suffering of humans, political and gendered violence and address the injustices associated with marginalization and global apartheid experienced by people in the third world and the Middle East in particular.

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