“Listen.
Do you see
that you can’t hear snowfall?
Look.
Do you sense
that you can’t see love?
Touch.
Do you grasp
that you can’t catch poems?
Try.
Smell this glass.
Go on taste this cloud.
These material senses won’t get you far until
you feel
the velvet glove caress your soul.”Kamand Kojouri
“Can we share my eyes
so you can see what I see?
Can we share my ears
so you can hear what I hear?
Can you perch on my shoulders
so you can go where I go?
Always in my heart,
I don’t experience anything separate from you.
This shared wonderment becomes doubled.
This shared love becomes infinite.”Kamand Kojouri
“Come, lovers.
Come join us.
Bring your empty cups
and sit by the fire.
Let Khayyam and Hafez
reveal to you what you feel.
Rumi will pour the wine
and I will listen.”Kamand Kojouri
“Come back to me.
Where have you gone?
And why so long?
I miss the star below your lip,
the constellation on your
chest.
I miss your ways,
how you net butter-flying words
and release them
for others to enjoy.
I miss your tenderness,
the sweetness of your breath,
and the song of your voice.
I miss how
you worshipped me.
Come back to me once more.
Why did you go?
And whatever for?
The heavens plotted against us.
The clouds came and
pissed on our lives.
The smell of charged particles
still lingers in the air.
What will become of you and I?
Come back to us.”Kamand Kojouri
“If you ask all the cells
in my body,
they only answer your name.
Follicles push the hair upwards
so they may brush
against your skin.
Nails grow faster as well.
Lungs breathe rapidly
in hopes of inhaling your scent.
Toes curl to smile and
knees form dimples when you are near.
Brain fireworks.
Stomach fills with flies of butter
and swallows, and
swans swoon.
Cattle, rhinos, and walruses too—
there’s a stampede when you are near.
I love you from the bottom of my liver
to the tip of my lashes.
One wink from you and heart stops
like a sneeze. Bless you.
I cannot even begin to tell you
what happens to soul,
for soul is off
flying with its mate.”Kamand Kojouri
“Last night, I spoke to God.
I told Him my plans. He started to cry.
I thought I was great to move The Greatest to tears.
He said that He was crying only because
my plans were very different
than His plans for me.”Kamand Kojouri
“Let us go where skins are rainbows,
enriched by every hue.Where genders are clouds,
weightless and formless through.Let us go where creeds are stars,
illuminating our view.Where men and women are one,
and the in-betweens are true.Let us go where I am free to love,
for I can’t stop loving you.”Kamand Kojouri
“Happiness, do not leave me.
I know you, a capricious monarch
perching on the fortunate flowers you see.
Hear me:
I am too attached to this royalty now.
Can I make you rest here somehow?
I will offer you the nectar of every flower in blossom,
the honey of every fruit in harvest.
I will make the Earth a garden,
the entire universe a forest.
I beg of you not to flutter by.
I beg of you not to leave me, butter-coloured fly.
Nest here
and for you,
I will create a home.”Kamand Kojouri
“I haven’t written you a poem in years it seems.
How can it be my fault
when the words to describe you
have yet to be created.
When the alphabet lacks the very letters.
How can it be my fault
when your loveliness only grows
by the time I reach for pen and paper.
Tell me, how am I at fault
when I am only a beginner in poems
and you are exquisite poetry.
To write you in words
is to put a veil upon you.
Why must I write
when I can kiss you instead?”Kamand Kojouri
“How is it
that everything must
begin and end with you?
There you are,
before sunrise,
perfuming the world with your scent.
Have you made a deal
with the moon so that you can linger
when she tapers off?
And what about the wind?
Even when he has been scolded
and is sitting in a corner, there you are,
my calm before the storm.
Despite the inevitable destruction
and my ruin, there you are again,
my calm after the storm.
I must,
I really must know:
‘How is it
that there was never you
until there was
and then all was you?'”Kamand Kojouri
Kamand Kojouri 