“i loved you quietly
wanting only 
to baptise you 
with light 
upon light
for the way you laugh
into your neck

in the courtyard 
of your dreams 
i loved you 
soft like satin wind
gliding 
across the river of music
and memory

i kissed the cherry trees
you crossed 
the scent of nostalgia
wild 
under warm vernal rain 
i danced
without a sound

i loved you solely you
between damp pages
of starlings and songs
while the moon wept 
i held you
like a holy yes
in my infinite solitude”

Kamand Kojouri

“I may be here
in my study alone as God 
when your perfume invades me 
and everything becomes charged 
All that is holy and obscene 
between life and life 
brims with possibility and potential 
To love and be loved 
is to plant a tree for shade 
and find it also bears fruit 
I would be King 
were this a world where 
the currency 
was love”

Kamand Kojouri

“And I roam the rainy alleys of your voice 
get lost in the forests of your eyes 
I yield to the city of your mouth 
and dream in the valley of your breast 
Oh to be this empty and this drunk 
to be this mortal and eternal at once 
Oh to forget and keep forgetting oneself 
—this is the only living”

Kamand Kojouri

“I had abandoned everything
frivolously
doing this that and nothing
until you broke through
with your perfume of promise
saying Give me your chaos
undressing my soul
with your ferocious beauty
and tulip-soft skin
making me uncivilised
making me overcome myself
You drank the darkness
within darkness
and weren’t ruined by it
This intoxicating uncertainty
forces me to delay ‘forever’
—your body is now my home”

Kamand Kojouri

“One of those awfully simple
and beautiful days 
with you
that makes me afraid of dying,
makes me afraid of not being.
When the soft 6 o’clock sun 
is slowly sinking
behind the harbour
and your smile, effortless
and tidy, makes time take flight.
You save me from death
but also from lifeless living.
With you
nothing’s wasted on me.
The music of the breeze, the colours
of children’s footsteps, the dancing 
trees—I drink them all,
and what’s more, you drink these 
with me.
One of those insignificant days
when we do nothing and achieve 
nothing, and yet, chasing the ducks 
and sharing my last stick of gum 
with you is everything.”

Kamand Kojouri