Wednesday, August 21, 2024

GAS Featured Poet: Mahdi Meshkatee

 


Mahdi Meshkatee is a UK-born, Iranian poet, author, and artist. His translation of the children’s novel Witch Wars by Sibéal Pounder has been published by Golazin Publication Company. His work has been published by a number of magazines, including October Hill Magazine, Nude Bruce Reviewand Inscape Magazine. His writings are a continuity of attempts at decoding himself. Instagram: @Mahdimeshkatee  Linkedin: Mahdi Meshkatee


I Missed a Key

 

The stains on the page are your tears.

(you haven’t shed them yet)

 

Last night in the great theater hall

The crowd gave me a huge standing ovation

An encomium I deserved after years of struggle

To be able to express myself. They cheered me on as I approached

The grand black piano at the center of stage, 

spotlight on me without being afraid

To lose for the second time in my life, the first the time I committed

Suicide but it went wrong, and I stayed alive.

 

I began with a piece from Schubert, Romantic

Challenging and shattering the ways of the world.

Then I moved on to Beethoven, some were intoxicated enough

To dance seated, and then stand up to elevate their movements

Rising and falling inaccurately on notes high and low.

I registered the moment into my brain, imagined myself dancing along

Hands up, feet moving on the ground as I was taught

When I was only eighteen and my sister brought me a drink

And from there it only took two to make us jump to the dance floor

Bodies expressing themselves after years of being told

To be careful not to show much, to keep close, to always consider

The worst outcome possible, and grow concerned, conservative and cautious

So much so that liberty becomes a distant notion and not so palpable

As for you to reach your hand out and grasp it.

 

The music flows, crescendos and diminuendos, ends, dins rise, noise floats over

The people happy with who they were, and happier with who they are, now,

In illusion as to the divisible nature of time

That there exists a time past present future

As if Schubert died like Beethoven died like Mozart died like me

When my piano broke and my key was stuck 

In the lock

And nobody came 

Not even my mom

To open the door

I sat behind

Crying 

For so long

until I was twenty-five

And dad came home

Groceries at hand and

Silently opened the door

To the same increment of time.



Sadness Shouldn’t Be Buried

 

Sadness shouldn’t be buried in a graveyard

 

It shouldn’t be buried next to the cashier 

Who celebrated his 60th birthday as 

A loving husband and papa.

 

It shouldn’t be buried next to the child

Who was drowned in a frozen lake

‘fore blowing a birthday cake.

 

It shouldn’t be buried next to the writer

Who was soon going to be published

And missed the right train.

 

Sadness should be felt, written about, cried over, lamented, reminisced, performed, lied, feigned, promised, maimed, mocked, longed, wanted, desired, haunted, gone, afloat, 

in the air, 

not in the 

ground,

Where the dead lie.





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