How to Drink Whisky
He shows me how to drink whisky
and I re-gift what there is
of this place to him,
what’s novel,
what may retain some mystery.
I edit and polish the town,
a kind of council,
a kind of road sweeper.
How often people behave as if the past,
with its messy entrails,
didn’t fill in their characters
like the alien, squashed,
bloody organs inside them
that are always in the dark.
We act as if dropped
into our significant moments.
We have to.
Honey lights and many mirrored pictures
that someone took care over.
Ye Olde furniture and precarious bar.
The kind of carpet that while proudly clean,
would not be fitted into any home built now.
You in your glory as always,
the required element of the scene.
It would be a lie to say
you didn’t lend light
to the environs of my life.
Things were secret again, mine.
His smooth voice sounds
like it’s always about to sing.
He says that the drink is sweet
because of the sugars,
from the wood, in the barrel.
That I can water it down
till it’s right for me.
*in the UK, whisky is spelled without the 'e'
Lover to Lover
You don’t know what you mean to people.
The tired refrain of who should have done what
must be replaced by the figure
of an anonymous lover,
ready to leap out of shadows,
bright red, in full flush,
their warm blood whorling
through their live body,
summoning and endearing you by inch.
You there, worthless, impotent,
lead minded you are not,
staring at walls even when outside,
trembling, humiliated, hands always cold,
skin resigning and peeling, mind conspiring,
someone loves you.
Someone wants to see you swimming,
silver, euphoric,
in a clean shoal.
Their museum wants every hair.
Their bank wants every shed tear.
Their library will accept any word.
Under their pillow,
only space for your refuse.
Let’s cast myself as that person,
watching from afar and scrawling poems
to find one to fit your face.
It would have been a lifetime’s work
of intricate precision.
Everyone should live as if they have
an unwavering lover
bound by adoration looking on.
Instead he chose this,
nothing, death,
the worms, the grave.
Monster
This man, who will not kill the spiders
he so detests,
who wants to be kind to animals
and not eat meat,
toeing the line of status quo
by publicly professing feminism
and the appropriate self-hatred
for the white parts of his heritage
prefers to sustain life
to toy with it.
Goodness is for him to give.
At the monster’s ball
where the fantastical attendees
eternally reel in haze and splendour,
behind the heavy curtains
there are broken dolls
that used to spin full-centre,
refracting as if through a kaleidoscope,
glittering like powdered quartz.
As I laugh I know there’s a chance
of becoming one.
His cruelty’s worse for being
interposed with great kindness.
Perhaps he doesn’t want to commit
more than is necessary,
knowing some is inevitable,
but his face shifts
like a bruise in rapid cycle.
Like God, truth is for him to create.
If only he could remember it.
This is the Weinstein way.
This collective unconscious
in which I’m complicit,
a fly writhing in a web,
is how terrible men have risen
to huge banners,
military force arranged
in front of them
neat as binary,
with all the monsters crawling
around at night, unseen.
Close
This close to death
I feel I’m dying
as if watching could make it so,
as if sight were contagious.
I couldn’t be closer to death
unless it was my own body
or my child’s,
(my own body still),
and were it so it wouldn’t be as real
as seeing his eyes drain of soul
like his body was put through a colander
to be the useless mush
that I’ve loved, love still, so much.
Although I’m close,
closer than most
who for this reason I’m divided from,
the space between us makes my dread seem like none.
It’s where guilt pours in.
If I were you I would repeat, “I am going but not gone
so will repeat, until I’m done.”
When you die I expect to walk
from this sweaty, sticky, flickering affair
to a room where you’re sitting on a chair
and say, “That business with you dying was awful.”
You were most beautiful,
I think, when yours eyes were full,
when they shone, sang.
Everything Must Go
Everything must go.
The trees must be uprooted
like pipe cleaners,
as if by a hurricane.
The house must be swept out
till its insides are gone
and it undoes itself.
Rip up the pesky turf,
everything must go,
every smile must be given.
If you have any strength
remaining in the muscles
of your face
that expression must be given.
The body must be yielded in sacrifice,
not just loaned.
This is how to live large.
Be remembered,
be selfish in absolute kindness.
If anyone calls for assistance
clean for them, cry, cook, coo,
give them what you yourself need.
If there’s something you want to keep,
give it away.
Everything must go,
hollow out the Earth.
Do not wait to be asked,
do not eat or sleep,
diverge from the task,
You have work to complete.
Life is distracting from itself.
When I sat in the chapel pew,
tartan and pleated in a row,
the headmaster said,
“If we learn to put others
before ourselves,
we will inherit the kingdom.”
This is the last call.
After all, we must find a way to live.
Make certain no one wears
your expression on their face.
Setareh Ebrahimi completed her Bachelor’s in English Literature from The University of Westminster, and her Master’s in English and American Literature from The University of Kent. She has been published numerous times in journals, including Brittle Star, Confluence and Scrittura. Her poetry has also been anthologised, most recently in Humanagerie by Eibonviale Press.
Setareh released her first pamphlet of poetry, entitled In My Arms from Bad Betty Press in 2018. Setareh is currently an editor for Thanet Writers. Recently she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Wordsmithery for her poem ‘Reckless’. In 2018 Setareh was one of the poets in residence of The Margate Bookie, at The Turner Contemporary Gallery.
Social Media Links: Tumblr: https://setarehebrahimi.tumblr.com/.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/setebrahimi/.
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