Kaveh Akbar: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kaveh Akbar. Photo by Paige Lewis

________________________________________________________

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

 

I can’t even remember my name, I who remember

so much—football scores, magic tricks, deep love

so close to God it was practically religious. 

 

When you fall asleep in that sort of love

you wake up with bruises on your neck. I don’t

have drunks, sirs, I have adventures. Every day

 

my body follows me around asking

for things. I try to think louder, try

to be brilliant, wildly brilliant. We all want

 

the same thing (to walk in sincere wonder,

like the first man to hear a parrot speak) but we live

on an enormous flatness floating between

 

two oceans. Sometimes you just have to leave

whatever’s real to you, you have to clomp

through fields and kick the caps off

 

all the toadstools. Sometimes

you have to march all the way to Galilee

or the literal foot of God himself before you realize

 

you’ve already passed the place where

you were supposed to die. I can no longer remember

the being afraid, only that it came to an end.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kaveh Akbar is the author of Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021) and editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse (Penguin Classics 2022). In 2024, Knopf will publish Martyr!, Kaveh’s first novel.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                                         Fiona Banner, Simpleton, Simpleton, Simpleton, oil on found painting, 77 x 127.5cm, 2021.

                              

 

Comments

[Barbara Henning]

Gorgeous poem. Thank you.

[lally]

brilliant

[Ann Bracken]

Lovely and true.

[Grace Cavalieri]

I am in love with this guy for real.

[Beth J]

Just enough mystery. Fine poem!

[John Clarke]

Mysterious enough to let you get it.

[Jody Payne]

I could never stop you even if I heard this a million times.

[Gerald Fleming]

Gorgeous. "To walk in sincere wonder"!

[KC Trommer]

"I can no longer remember/the being afraid, only that it came to an end." and that is how you land a poem. Also I love the article use of the article in "the being afraid". Thanks, Kaveh. Off to kick the cap off all the toadstools . . .

[Bill Nevins]

" I can no longer remember

the being afraid, only that it came to an end."
Among the finest and truest poems I have ever read. Thank you Kaveh and Terence.

[Terence Winch]

Bill: Thanks for the comment.

[Don Berger]

This poem feels prayer-like, in the best sense. Akbar stays on a line, on the beam, loyal to what his true personal concerns are, and yet the stanzas pop, full of surprises with each sentence, which is not an easy feat. I and I'm sure others want to savor his words and go back over them a good number of times. A great pick Terence of a wonderful poet whose work's new to me--I'm really glad to have found him here.

[Dick Lourie]

I have rarely encountered such a depth of mysticism and consciousness of another world expressed in such ordinary language and ordinary images.Power.

[Tom Mandel]

I like this work a lot. It is excited -- & it makes me excited too.

Can't wait to read more poems by you, Kaveh.

[Terence Winch]

Don:  Thanks for the comment.

[clarinda]

What Dick Lourie said. A huge Yes to the poem, and also, in a much larger sense, to what it prays for. I needed and need this poem.

[Eileen]

Wonderful poem.

[Miichael Whelan]

After experiencing the upending spirit tangles in this work, kicking the caps of all the toadstool seems indeed practically religious to me.

[bruce robinson]

what nonsense

[Thomas Devaney]

Reread several times -- excellent poem!

[Doug Pell]

I also was following my body the first time man heard a parrot speak. Totally identify. Kaveh Akbar speaks for all humans here.

[Peter Kearney]

This enchanting poem begins with a statement of what the poet does not remember. Then follow lines that bespeak effort and struggle followed then by the theme of sincere wonder. To reach this point, one must undertake a doggedly determined sort of pilgrimage leading to an encounter with the divine. Once again,as in the opening stanza, the poet does not remember, but this is a gift of freedom from fear of death.