Translated from the Persian by Reza Baraheni and David St. John
I Am an Underground Man
Now I am an underground man
I will never appear on the earth again
God libraries poetry belong to the earth
my holograph holds no fantasy for children
or romance for the senile
I am the rotten well of history
they seek me, they poke me, they
curse me and, finally, they drain me
I have mortgaged my beard in the vaults of history
my deadly ink will blot out the hand
outreached to me I am not fit for textbooks
for schools and universities
if you wish to see me, look into the pit
of an oil well from the summit of Everest
throw your matches down
so that I can set the whole world aflame
I am an underground man
my fire alone shall appear on the face of the earth
Doctor Azudi, the Professional
the Khan did not clean his teeth either
the Khan also belched the Khan
did not take off his boots either Azudi
has shattered the mouths of twenty poets today
Azudi wears a tie something
Genghis Khan never did
only this splendid detail reveals the prodigious march of history
Zadan! Nazadan!
suddenly a woman is sleepless in her dream
she screams:
Nazan! Nazan! Nazan!†
prisoners wake in the block one by one
and man and woman scream:
Nazan! Nazan! Nazan!
and in the torture chambers
the beating begins
Nazan! Nazan! Nazan!
Hosseinzadeh, the Head Executioner
Azudi lights his cigarette
—say Doctor Azudi!
and Doctor Hosseinzadeh!—
he’s short, with a bald head, and eyes uneasy
as the asshole of a nervous rooster
he is a man of great renown:
he always stubs his cigarette on the back of a human hand
he never smokes more than forty a day
and the first caress is always
the privilege of this Pahlavi slut
and the last caress too
between the two cuffs
Azudi and Rassuli and Shadi and Manuchehri
Azudi and Parvizkhan and Rezavan and Hosseini nurse
the patient
one extracts his nails
another his teeth
a third scours the skin
a fourth provides the shock treatment
a fifth the reflagellation
and the sixth prepares the ailing for the coup de grace
there’s a short man whose name is Ardalan
—say Doctor Ardalan!—
he fucks the afflicted
man and woman are the same to him
he holds a PhD in rapacity
(and you, prisoner! you try all this time to forget
the name of the half-blind man who printed that
article of yours, he has a wife, three children, a
father and a mother, and he provides for them all)
and then Hosseinzadeh
—say Doctor Hosseinzadeh!—
administers the final cuff
the final verdict to shoot you
comes between the two caresses
The Shah and Hosseinzadeh
the Shah has granted full authority
to Hosseinzadeh
once he mustered six of us blindfolded
we were loaded on a truck an hour before
dawn they took us out of the city then they
brought us back to the city it was
as though we were traveling from one city
to another in our dreams then we were
unloaded and bound to six iron posts
then the command of that familiar voice was heard:
squad!
attention!
prepare to fire!
fire!
all six of us pissed our pants!
they removed our blindfolds
Hosseinzadeh and Azude stood in a corner
pissing themselves with laughter!
say Doctor Hosseinzadeh! and Doctor Azudi!