Inferno,
Inc.
Maryam Hooleh
Translator :
Dr.Ahmad Karimi Hakkak
You have
accepted it
accepted
heedless they
whirl in the wind – daily incidents . . .
“That
shameless decrepit man, did he remove his elephant body off your customs?”
“No, not yet!
no end to my cigarettes . . .
puff by
puff, I burn. . .!”
Fall according
to some law, dear incident, just as you walk
people’s dreams and realities . . .
breakables
from up there, unbreakables here on the earth
this encounter
with wounds, hysteria and malaria is inevitable.
Pulsate in
this civil society’s brain, incident
in the brain
of an apartment, on the street, pulsate . . . .
Add a head to
the nether parts of urban life
even if it’s
ugly and worn out, with a piggish nose
still it’s
better than nothing, this inferno, inc. . . .
Even if they
stuff America in my back-pocket
the urine
that’s pressing at me has annihilated my happiness
religion spits
all over my bladder non-stop . . .
or is it that
my blood pressure is down?
Either way,
Mr. Worrisome is pacing downstairs!
Beloved
incident,
the fact of
your following some law throws both my doubts and dogmas into chaos
tell me, where
in the scheme of machinations fits a monster called human?
Confess, and
you have in fact confessed
that an ant’s
brain fills you up, on top of the Eiffel
an exile that
in the brains of official rats barbecues the meatiest of your thoughts . . .
you run, you
heat up
in the brains
of the spies . . .
a thin little
cell out of your share of the country’s phosphorus . . .
on strange
maps, illegible . . .
it runs . . .
it boils up . . . it burns . .
runs . . .
boils up . . . burns . . . .
Run
charge at me,
you wild cells of the world
start with the
solitary cells
before the
party begins, in street uniforms
pasteurize me
in a pot of boiling water.
Iron out my
protruding parts
cells of fear
have turned my curves and creases into a semblance of the world.
pasteurization
turns you into smooth and clean books
that turn the
world topsy-turvy
when fear
turns out to be funny before the crimes of the novel and the television
courage lies
nearby, unable to do much . . .
except
reseating you from behind your eyeglasses on God’s wheelchair.
It’s the
silence of the beds that the world fears
because sleep
is braver than wakefulness
silence more
deadly than scream.
Why does
inaction fail to support you, why did society?
Choose your
opponent: the walls that surround you
turn the
city’s lights off, return to the global village of your dreams
that’s where
fear and stupidity cannot produce babies
chronic
differences of opinion do not deliver happiness from the crack of their
filthy thighs. . . .
The stupidity
of this dumb peace is the context for my undoing . . . .
In rotten
eastern thoughts, in disheveled western tastes
remembering
the decrepit face at the glazing height of a dream
in the depth
of every leper or blind voice, or before the question inside that death has
not
dared ask
reviving the
memory of pork being served
amid the
stench of burning human flesh.
Mary
Antoinette the queen
Ain al-Qozat
the old philosopher
the professor
throbbing
arteries along the neck of the Taleban girl . . . .
Hey, X
hey, hundred
to the power of two
hey square
root of Alexander!
Subtract my
dreams from my days . . . .
The bravest of
people is the one
who dares to
remember as he wakes up.
It’s in
remembering that the world pulsates
arms are one
way to forget
a noisy sort
of forgetting we use to retreat to our childhood.
Take away my
lollypop, little incident
Raise me on
the lap of your fascism
so in you I
can reach the right to choose.
Rights are
meaningless unless you don’t have them
and are facing those who do.
I will not
burn you because my roots will turn into ashes
I command you,
fascist incident!
Let there be
the monster, single-headed and double-eared, upon the earth.
It is tough
that somewhere in the world Mars should proclaim his prophecy on TV
and somewhere
else the plague spit his hysterical laughs on stalls of imported CDs
that in a
movie-house somewhere different dances marry each other
so eugenics
can work its magic. . .
yet on our
little alley the first century Hegira, fat and lazy,
should still contemplate the
question of borders and termites . . .
and inside its
brain you,
holding a bow and arrow, wearing hot pants under your
black chador
should still run, get hot, burn. . .
run, get hot, burn. . . .
Are you
accepting this?
Hum! Mani! Pah!
My! Huh!
Yahaa!
Make it
snappy!
Sparrows have
sprouted in your ears, now you can hear ma as I rale!
Morning, you
are there in my breakfast
I dare and I remember.
Besides me and
the words I have consumed – with joy, with the ruler, and with pain –
there are
other things next to my breakfast
I dare and I remember.
My bits of
luck got stuck in the desert
ever since the
day they hopped into my thin female car.
Now, men and
slogans
will make no
difference to my gas tank’s condition.
No longer can
making a revolution or migrating
stop this
little machine growing up.
It is
approaching thirty now, but the desert is still the desert.
It is about to
become a grandma
yet she wraps
hot sand in dainty boxes, for her grandchildren,
Inferno, inc!
I am not sure
if it is the ace of spades or a dictator that hides in my pocket
you know
hungry folks
can hide anything in their pockets
in place of
coins and dry bread!
But the sounds
of their missiles shrieking comes up from deep inside my pockets
and the stench
of the latrine and tear gas
has seeped
into my clothes so much
it makes
lovemaking difficult.
Aha, incident,
lawful little incident:
Fess up – this
last fetus you aborted, wasn’t that love!
The stench of
blood rolled in rotten dirt, caught in the mouths of alley cats
That’s enough
to turn the city folks on!
The smell of
blood in a tennis racket, in women’s chadors, inside men’s beards
at Salman
Rushdie’s execution
in
made-to-order poems
in
mail-ordered brides.
The stench of
blood in me, inside me still carrying so much blood
in the folds
of my words, still living and livid
through the
ordeal of life, about to give up the ghost!
And the desert
is still the desert . . .
Inferno, inc!
Tell me, does
the baton help the dead live again?
This baton has
been brainwashed
Surely it is
the most pious Muslim on earth
no doubt
about it
the reason, no
dialog with this one!
You can only
make room for a baton
the squares
and the peddlers roaming through them have left no room for fight-or-flight.
The banknotes
they are supposed to shove up the schools’ nether parts
the checks
that are supposed to provide arrows
leading from the alleys to the squares and the peddlers .
. . .
No
the more I
change
the more
society makes a claim to being like me
go on
hopscotching, take care not to fall
for the gods,
this is their natural rights
forgive me if
I once beat you in that game
it was only a
local little game, by accident, with divine help
limping along
does you good at times!
They are right
For the
trembling soul her words resemble frog figurines,
about to give up the ghost
more sleep
will not pacify my little life.
Look well at
these deserted temples
at the breasts
formed by the ashes
that ought to
take care of your street smarts!
the
tooth-bites left by the rat of leftover foods
have made a
cavern of eternal pain in their granite hearts,
feet that need
no hands, without an exhausted brain
hands that
need no feet . . . .
Serve grapes
grown on the branches of your no-rights!
Play marbles,
maintain your balance
image of a
deadly hell . . . .
Illusions of a
century, caught between two mirrors,
the crackling coal of the
condemned. . . .
Molten lead in
the middle of the dialog. . . .
am I any
different from the paper that Danton read?
Rights,
rights, rights. . . .
“What is left
of the rights?
Wow, is that
all?
I don’t care
whose corpse this is, it is still scary!
Doesn’t matter
whether it’s my right or yours,
I don’t want it, and you don’t
either.”
Sometimes
speaking nonsense helps add a little to the civilization of justice
this offering
comes from a trembling subconscious to an annihilated consciousness. . . .
Later on,
riding in history’s ambulance
I’ll patiently
take care of the erection that is the incidental law of this century
for now, just
let me die!
After all,
only the dead can write the life history of the dead
the living ca
n only study
your eyes are
not supposed to remain open and see
as you are struggling inside the incident!
Usually, you
can stare life in the face when you are outside it!
This is what
scraps of clocks and newspapers spell out
clearly,
legibly, throwing it crumpled all over the dustbin of alleys. . . .
And the desert
is still the desert . . . .
Feet in the
world, head in time
how does this
ant stand me stepping on its body?
Caprice is a
place where time and space copulate in a crate
in the position of, well, beside each other, in one
place. . . .
What a tough
life,
the ease of the last few gasps must have crushed her
teeth.
The pyramids
are past animation
the geometry
of objects is no cure for the leprosy of gab!
Humiliation,
this spell of a helplessness
is keeping me
alive, for now
nothing was as
truthful as this
I am the truth
a double-edged
lie that squats in the middle of itself.
Watch your
movie, crack the nuts!
Jelsomina
wakes up with a crackling noise
put on your
pants!
Time for you
to get old
the old know
how to feel shame
the old are
professional bearers of shame
only with the
old can you have human relations
I have woken
up
have put on
lipstick
today the
street looks more civilized than it did yesterday
when this
old-fashioned immigrant would only look at his refugee status in Europe
as the
difference between yellow and brown sheep.
Issue me a
citizenship card, heavens
my teeth are
falling faster than rich professional geezers!
Lawful
incident in the coroner’s office. . .
lawful
incident in the tight virginity of circumcised girls
who have been
deleted from all dreams
in the flaccid
Turkish delight hidden inside a potbelly suit.
in the taxicab
that has embellished the desert
in a sea that
serves itself pork
and on top of
corpses of curious humans they treat themselves to rocks and oysters!
Incidentally,
did my baby swallow an incident instead of a marble
or was it in
fact a marble he swallowed?
(After I have
gotten rid of it, all the logical pieces, in the same holy order, will still
make me throw up, just so I can be sure I am still alive. . . .)
My dear
cellmate!
After you have
collected your clothes from the clothesline
think a little
while about the filth that is gone forever
the stench. .
. .
Think of the
flower you gave your lover
the shampoo
you used to wash your baby’s hair
tales that
disappeared forever, after each reading. . . .
Once
upon a time
in an age that
was modern, this breakfast that is no longer there.
“Who can say
infidelity is antagonistic to God?”
“Are you sure
religion is not an enemy of human beings?”
What good is
knowing or not knowing?
The important
thing is that these things exist
And as for
antagonism to God
or enmity
toward humans
Which is more
harmful?
Easy – the one
that is more palpable. . .
reach out and
touch!
pull my leg
and touch!
I have
reversed course, taken another path
all kids grow
up with the straight engine that goes in reverse
and still no
circle was closed.
Dots were far
separated by the distance between the heavens and the earth
and the
question was not between the heavens and the earth
it was which
one, the heavens or the earth!
Who am I?
And what has
the circle to do with me? (So the desert would be a cutie or a cunt?)
Wow!
As the
incident was becoming lawful
It was turning
into a son of a bitch too!
Reality turns
the torrent of your babies into a droplet
and how would
you answer them, Lady Cloud, when they grow up?
Will you shed
rains over them?
Do you still
rain the rain that makes you sweat?
As you turn
into an infidel you open our eyes and see that you have been dry all along!
A time for
raining . . .
you are put
together from the smoke in the eyes of the passersby!
From the
passing of painful laughter
the despair of
fuming rigs!
In the desert
you are your own optical illusion!
Now, hop off
yourself and graze in yourself
never mind
This desert
has nothing to graze on.
“And you were
never a thing of use to yourself anyway!”
Besides, the
desert was a classed desert!
One class the
hills, another the valleys, one highlands, one lowlands!
And wave upon
wave of salty dust!
and dust, and
more dust
gusts of dust
drafting plans for people.
Being modern
means when you say something romantic
you should use
a station.
With all your
words and thoughts, station by station, you must have been afflicted
by
urbanization.
to expect to
get off no matter where you get on
and get on
again no matter where you get off!
The demise of
the incident
lawful
incident, you are falling, brother
with all the
killings, the self-burnings, the plagues
we are
reaching the days when you will no longer fall at any point.
You are a man
only so long as men have become lawful
unlawful
incident is a nonsense!
You have grown
old
go mind your
business
the fact that
I have agreed to even think of you
without seeing
your national ID card
is more than
you deserve!
“Pick boo!”
“Mommy?”
“What is
this?”
“A window!”
“And this?”
“A cartoon
show!”
“And this?”
“Well, you
know
they pulled
out the nails of the noblest of our people, clipped them together,
to give us the
Third World!
It’s dirty and
stained, but it has calcium!
Instead of
licking your feet
Now you can
stand on your own!
It is more
humiliating to be a third class citizen than to be an independent pest!
You can have a
president of your own, a country, and a whole system of
national oppression!”
“Hum!
I will not
grow up
I’m tired of
thinking I should become you
why should
someone become his mother
being a child
makes more of a difference:
all moms are
moms, the exact same thing
but I am me,
myself
and loving
redundant people doesn’t mean I should think of their tongue!”
The chair in
the trash. . .
The toilet
bowl in the tea. . .
what
difference does that make to you?
Think of me as
your newspaper
Bend a little
and I’ll put the load of my news on your back
take it to the dumpsite and empty
it
and on our way
back,. I’ll drink pasteurized milk from your sweat
and salute
regulation-free breakfasts
I will eat
this one with her underwear and bra on, under the full moon
the same
underwear and bra that have leaped through the loop of crime!
“By the way,
young man, you never told me
in which
newspaper the Milky Way would be annihilated!”
Take away my
peace so I can live again
burn my plants
demolish my
roof
violate my
virgin sky
so my skin can
crack open
to shed the
shell
it’s in the
midst of adversity that people grow!
The stupid
ones stay put
the smart
smoke that finds its way through the crack belongs to honest atheism!
Powerful
people always negate the preceding powerful people to grab at power!
In people’s
eyes, clouds, cold and cruelty, a mirror in front of your skin!
Shed that
shell!
The moment you
wish to be a mirror you have multiplied yourself
and before you
know it you are a religion
“Don’t do
that!”
“Can I do
anything else?”
Help me on
so I can see
whether anything distinguishes human beings as superior
other than
remaining separate and serving as a mirror.
No, never!
The first
human was a copy machine of rules
that gave the
incident diarrhea
your stomach
was not hardened, incident, and we grew old, one by one.
You have held
me by the collar so tight
that we escape
immortality, at the time of our death
unless it
lasts only for fifty years, only on earth.
I am trying to
make your wits fly off
let my
concentric particles discover my destiny.
Abracadabra!
Spearmint for
me, henna for the old hag!
Take this
death away from me, leave it at my fetus’s feet!
This blanket
force would be a good incentive
for abandoning
yourself to life, in a few light seconds
you are the
perfect fit for killing time.
Aren’t I
right?
Take this
shovel from me, give me that candle!
boys for my
various outfits
girls for
staring at!
Wall me in, a
wall of glass would be best
looking like
this does a better job of keeping civilization busy
you are in
cahoots with wasting time
Aren’t I
right?
Poetry,
guillotine . . .
fooling around
with women . . .
and here’s
your wall of glass . . .
I have strayed
from the path of modernization
it was too
acidic
I am now all
washed up with it.
Are my smiles
ahead, or your collective awe,
you who despise madhouses, homeless shelters, and
Hitler?
Some people
are evil machines
Don’t tell me
their thoughts!
Even broad
beans swell in their tummies so bad
you can hear trees shouting for days through their
cracks.
Killing time.
. .
by spitting
out slogans. . .
is so cool!
Aren’t I
right?
Inside
Inferno, inc. evil machines are always fatter
that’s how the
desert lets some pass but not others
letting pass
is the thing.
Sinking at the
edge of the desert, or at its bottom?
The difference
is between letting pass and being accepted.
Humans have an
inclination to be asses
loving and
caressing and munching seeds . . .
Sitting in at
a TV show or falling asleep in front of it.
Does it matter
where your chair is?
I’m dozing off
down here, you up there.
You dram of
delivering lashes, I dream of receiving them.
The important
thing is when you wake up
you don’t care
to remember that you have been violated
nor would you
care to remember that you have done the violating.
If you want
the truth of it, breakfasts don’t help humans cure themselves
you must think
of a better lullaby for tonight
otherwise
we’ll both suffer a fall!
Worms are not
ousted through our hopes
so long as
worms crawl in the garden, humans can’t find immortality –
don’t you have
a thought, incident?
Your pregnant
rules only make more fertilizer for the garden!
Cow crap and atomic waste
Wood or cement
Differences in days, differences in duties . . .
An accountant
must sit apart
On one side
accounts of all the urbanization
on the other those of the First World and medicine and
Mars.
Count and
you’ll see how many real hearts are beating
On real time
to make white blood in the brain –
How many
hearts?
On a wooden
bed
in the gutters
under the rock
and the desert
machine
how many
hearts beat?
“Real hearts
don’t beat in sleep, brother!”
You are cool
with being an ass
aren’t I
right?
And making an
ass of us is what geniuses do
worms are not
asses and they don’t make an ass of us, they just munch!
We’re talking
about hearts that beat in sleep!
You are
wasting you time, incident!
I know the
reason for this conspiracy:
Cinema
the hero wound
up by the wind, and who knows things
but as soon as
people look and the dialog gets rolling
they go with
the wind
not with the one who is doing the talking
not with the talk that is doing the one . . .
Hit!
Hit!
Please
hit me!
I am stronger
than you
because my
fantasies always end in my empowerment
and I think
that the world is a figment of my imagination!
And you, my
other thoughts, who envy me
because there is no way you would be me
because you cannot lie to
yourselves
whereas I can.
I lie, therefore I am.
I have thick skin, because I do not
believe!
Take the away
from me, my blonde darling!
I think with
black hair
maybe that’s
why my thoughts are not pretty, but yours are!
Beauty always
comes with stupidity
conspiracy and
divinity with ugliness . . . .
Gods are
formed by undoing and being undone.
When a god
falls prostrate before a beauty that has got the power?
This violates
the laws, incident!
There’s an
evil in you who takes kindness away from us
I think of you
in the midst of mountains and forbidden countries.
Cities scare
me about you
so power is
where two elements encounter.
It is this
possibility that decides
not you, not
love
not street
fantasies
not great
expectations –
we are
nothing!
Time is the
greatest of plaything that entertains us.
The moment you
feel bored moments are no more
And you fall
down through the crack between the moment before and the moment after.
You fall –
with the thought of time in your pockets
you tremble
from the fall – with your tongue in your eyes.
In this
dreadful madhouse of a dungeon
your footsteps
become echoes of these words!
“The likes of
the circle were not a circle, or there wouldn’t be a fall.”
“A circle is a
good thing, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You
manipulate anyone you wish
and you can be
kicked anywhere – here, there, in the park, in the head!”
Is death a
fall or a flight?
There is no
direction in the constellations.
Death is a
return to the constellatory absence of rules.
Justice is
annihilation
annihilation and equality.
Borders bored
you
These days
walls and borders are made of glass!
So, what are
you waiting for?
Share your
longest word with me – after death!
“How is that
possible?”
After all, if
freedom ends in the glass it will destroy you too
nothing would
be visible from behind you, neither opaque objects, nor yourself!
A democracy of
glass sees nothing any more
is this
annihilation
or pure
vision?
A pair of
sixes is not always cause for celebration.
I’ll miss the
dialog, Cinema!
But when I fly
in a vacuum, without tranquilizers and barbiturates
I feel such a pleasure it’s like overcoming the pain of
labor
with a few milligrams of morphine, forever,
that’s death!
Now let’s get
back to the beginning!
Labor pain
continues
that’s life!
Ears naked
hands naked
how can I buy
you love from myself?
People are
never as great as when they fall in love or rise to be a politician!
Help them
reconcile themselves with this!
And then the
trains and the tunnels all move in the same direction:
“home!”
Memories of
whorehouse windows . . .
Muslims and
deserts . . .
Directions and
hours . . . .
The truth is,
the difference between desires
and the time before their fulfillment
is time – and that’s that!
“Time?”
Talk to her a
little, maybe she’ll relent!
Dear
plaything!
I lose you as
I wind you up!
When I wake up
you have already come to, and you are having noise for breakfast.
What am I to
do with you, with your alarm bell wind up knob!
If we – and
our new daily demands – were not here
you would kill
yourself from the boredom of monotony, wouldn’t you?
Inferno, inc,
is nothing but hollow time
without
corpses around, because it has nothing to let rot!
Even our death
postpones your no incident . . .
Tie me up in
my home one day, incident
and let me see
if at the end of the day you do not feel depressed.
If I keep you
from committing suicide the Milky Way will fall down the ladder
in animation.
And my baby, the savior, will yell out: it has fallen!
We decide when
you fall
how can you
not take care of us?
If my hair
were blonde would you have fallen in a different way,
so that every time you fall your hands and legs would not
break,
so your wheelchair would not stop
working?
Ah, incident!
this hell in me, my limbs a shirt on its body
this mound of
fire, all this cursing flaming forth from my spinal column .. .
ageless me,
ancient me, puzzle without answer, with a dying inferno, inc. inside . . .
.
Get out of me!
Smash me to
the ground!
Break me so
you drop down next to me, again!
Ah, incident,
incident!
I am ageless,
for you have not grown in me
single-cell
creatures will not convince me f the passage of time
not through
their reproduction.
Believe me and
fall in my arms,
with a sackful of dollar bills
or a man who would not fight me
or a country in which kids do not die of old age, in
accidents, or by bullets!
Then I’ll believe you, and
immortalize you!
History is my
sorrow in a bed where I think of you
Pin your stars
to my sky, and I’ll make history’s limbs real!
And then,
finally, time will experience the mutual touch, in the hands of a real
being.
Three-dimensional cinema . . .
viewers that
had turned into sheep
will have
turned superhuman.
Then seeing
and being seen will become one and the same thing:
a timeless action word!
Snore, snore,
snore!
Grow big as I
puff you up!
This time I
have penned your formula incidentally,
Come what may!
I fell in love
incidentally
had babies
incidentally
was anointed a
prophet incidentally,
the pyramids
for my breakfast
a pair of
flying shoes,
and satellite
channels that the Islamic Republic censors,
with a heart
that stops working in sleep
with an eye
that suddenly opens up
and with my
two-year-old
who steals my
lighter from inside the kitchen to take the world seriously.
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