National Poetry Month : Khashayar Mohammadi,

Scorn

 

one night the city screamed at me and I screamed back. Waited until the end of man:the face: distorted into the illicit but: commonly agreed upon. creator in the clouds: cataracts and nebulous pupils: how to be your dad’s father             
a worn shoe            tracked in mud.

          there’s the wait for dad’s new paycheck           gas station pizza
          there’s the wait for my new paycheck              gas station flowers
one night the city screamed: hunched over the corner of the subway jerking off: after all pollock placed his canvas on the ground         and held his brush
          blotches of his manhood 
          new perspective
a dollar fifty for a patty and the wait for dad’s new paycheck
and the wait is dissected into tiny atoms of waiting
quantum-entagled particles of waiting
the planc length of waiting
turtles all the way down
waiting
where I attend the atomically dissected dream.
We receive our script and I say all the lines marked POVERTY                    

                                                             The sun
                                         That special ingredient!
                                         (a beat)
                                         LOVE!        

POVERTY

BUT IT WAS ALL RAGE IN MOTHER’S COOKING

one night the city shone flesh-pink in scorn and I walked around in its piss, its sole mucus gland. one night I was indistinct but the face of the man: the distorted eyes behind the threshold of decades. and decades.

 

 

 

Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (They/Them) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize and 2022’s Arc Poem of the year award and they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize. They are the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry chapbooks. Their debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is out with Gordon Hill Press. Their second book WJD is out in a double volume with the translation of Saeed Tavanaee’s The OceanDweller from Gordon Hill Press fall 2022. Their collaborative poetry manuscript with poet Klara Du Plessis is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press Fall 2023.