The ICORN-relay—Sepideh Jodeyri
The ICORN-relay has now left Scandinavia and landed in Italy, where the Iranian poet, translator and journalist Sepideh Jodeyri currently lives. Jodeyri has written three collections of poetry; two have been published, one is banned in Iran. In this edition we publish a newly written poem by her. A poem about leaving your country.
Fleeing
Perhaps, it was only my life
which so dizzily
sat on your red eyes
Oh pass, you the light of my body!
Perhaps I held the black sensations
like the one
who expresses sorrow at the back of a door.
May I carry from Baqi’ to Khavaran and then flee away!
May I carry the short songs of the soul with myself and then flee away!
May I carry the beautiful name of “Tehran” and then flee away!
Oh pass, you the light of my body!
I scream successively
I take your ears successively
and scream …
The world is my sin, you the purposeless stains!
The world is my sin, you the countless laughter!
The world is my sin and
I am a
scream.
May I carry the laughing sins and then flee away!
Twelve it is, what we count is of twelve.
The cruel makeup I wear on my face can laugh at the earth: twelve it is!
And from the crack that I erupt on my body, a thousand of orchards may
bloom.
Oh you the sleeping wells! Pass, pass over my head; it is twelve!
Oh pass, you the light of my body
Oh you the hung icicles!
Oh you the fractures of my head!
Repetition of you for me
is the repetition of circling the earth
that the sun would rise over the sun
And “the air
that has the fancy to
eat me!”
Oh Egypt!
Oh the ‘womenest’ day!
When you bare your face
it never
ever
makes my eyes go black!
And light
has emerged into
All the “-ests”
May I carry the couplet, blood and bread with me and then flee away!
The “ranginak” we baked was more colorful than we ourselves
And love
When it sat right over my head
fell and
broke!
Hang my mean father!
“that whatever I have is from his being!”
May I carry the half-dead graves and then flee away!
And what has been left from everything
And what has been left from everything
And what has been left from everything
And the heaven that circles, circles to remain black
Like the days that won’t pass over my head
And the waters that with highest pressure
Are the most waterless waters of the world
Like me
that am no woman at all
that am no colour at all
that am no soul at all
but a face
that passes
and leaves
ICORN
The International Cities of Refuge Network is an association of cities around the world dedicated to the value of Freedom of Expression. Writers have consistently been targets of politically motivated threats and persecution, and the network believes it is necessary for the international community to formulate and implement an appropriate response. Each ICORN city focuses on one writer at a time, each writer representing the countless others in hiding, in prison or silenced forever.
