The Shahnameh and Me (and you, and you and you).

There has been a call for me to start keeping a research blog on my work on this project, and especially how I think a feel about this work in the light of current political developments in the motherland (Iran, for those ever-imaginary new readers). Well, here's the first update - up to date and excited about taking you on a date some time soon:

I'm making a play. Again.

More updates to come! xxx

Shahnameh-ye Azadeh

Being devised in a school hall somewhere near some of you soon:

SHAHNAMEH-YE AZADEH (Azadeh's Shahnameh: A Royal Dispatch)

• Shahnameh – The Persian Book of the Kings, by Abolqasem Ferdowsi, was completed in eastern Iran in around A.D. 1010 and is a royal chronicle, spanning the reigns of fifty Persian monarchs.
• A work of mythology, history, literature and propaganda, the Shahnameh is a living epic poem that pervades and expresses many aspects of Persian culture.

This young cast breathes fire into Iran’s national epic with ‘Shahnameh-ye Azadeh’, the first dramatic adaptation of Abolqasem Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings.
The energetic chorus of aunts and uncles are our guides, inviting us into the world of Azadeh, a young British-Iranian girl. Azadeh invokes the poet, Ferdowsi, who tells her stories that help her understand her cultural heritage, using mantic shadow puppetry, stylistic mime and bilingual verse.
An accessible, intimate and apolitical devised promenade production that conveys the warmth of Iranian hospitality whilst weaving a playful narrative thread between Iran’s ancient, modern and expatriated cultures.

Music

www.myspace.com/sarazaltashmusic

Peace is ambiguous

Six self-conscious referents
Vying for employed escape
From the emerging summer damp.
Diatribe graduates rant,
Peace is ambiguous.

Why should I last without you all?
Not seize up in an icy tunnel
Of withering dust,
Forsworn destinations.
Peace is ambiguous.

Cursory inclusion begets
Abandoned plans.
Your rotted parts meet heavy lips,
I only have to make you happy.
Peace is ambiguous.

Cause and Effect

Present at the first dawn of madness,
I sat, wide open and alone,
Watching the epiphanies flood faster,
Caressing erosion, alternate happenstance.
Thinking made it so,
Suddenly, after years of wondering.
Thinking made it so. And why not?
Inside, all answers are unbidden,
And questions askew from description.
Constant longing.
So make it so.
And forge from words those thoughts
Into the crisp, cawing dawn,
Shaking the firs and furniture of logic,
Cause and effect.

Elegy

Starring in all directions:
Platform to post;
You never see
What’s inside you,
The ghost erected in honour,
As if glories were just
Passing and time
Its elegy.

Choose a cup

Time for a new poem, it's a bit different from the others. Hope you like it. XXX

Indecision metaphors all these
Monsters. Calculating meanders
Through road work tunnels, kids muck.

Choose a cup for father’s
Milk. Lovingly; warm German
Memories.
Choose a cup
For the trickling.

The cups were two,
Few others wined with them.

Slender, glass,
fit for steel receptions.
Gilded, round,
handless worn,
Enough.

Metaphor marking
Stretched cling film,
Sardine tails.

Drink the excess!
Take on the chance
of overflowing.
Drink
the spoils made merry.

If there is too much,
you’ll live
by it;
sweet father’s milk.

Or
Let and inch of smooth beige
forced stone protect the blended
Meniscus.
Cover and seal and save.
Emergency’s.

Racks full.
Tails trashed in disposal.
All clear and set,
Spoon sipping
Sweet
Father’s
Milk.

Pour!

Sleek, svelte
Milk!
An ambrosial cascade of molten flour!

You still have to choose.