Azin Izadifar

Hermes

                           1

He who was not born as a god,

Yet made one of himself.

With winged feet he travels on winds,

sliding on oceans,

striding over mountain tips.

He knows the rising bright ways of the sky,

and all the pathways into underground; dark, deep and down.

He reads the roads starting from palms of hands,

running never-ending beneath feet through unknown lands,

all and each which emerge from mouth,

by the simplest words uttered out,

curving through ears to minds and hearts.

He sees the trails unpaved, laid unseen before eyes,

and those paved and seen ; wrinkled on a face.

With winged head he dreams his dreams;

Throbbing thoughts, thinking twice,

before setting the birds of words free to fly.

winged he is, yet not a fragile bird.

The bestower of dreams,

A dreamer himself, but /too/practical!

　                                  2

Trust him, and he will lie!

Lie to him, and he will smile!

Call him savior; he'll put you down!

Call him sacred and he will run!

He's the trader who doesn't buy victims' tears,

the transformer of pain into poems, prose and deeds.

The winged god, who was once a crawling child;

Who would've known a word would be " the messenger god"?

                                   3

When gods meet us humans,

He is the shaking hands.

The magic stick which sits in peace,

right between us; the poisonous enemies.

When they gods; the serpents,

twist around my very human sensitive skin,

tearing up my tender flesh,

breaking down my bones and ribs,

when they rub off on me,

their unbearable light hands,

sweeping me off my feet,

off my veins rooted underground,

sucking me up,

to their nonsense nowhere heavenly lands,

You are the god of scales and weights!

When they gods; the insatiables,

crawl under my skin,

and I intertwine with their very human-sensitive immortal limbs,

Licking their untouched ivory skins,

exposing them to my deadly germs,

of hunger, of wanting of fear and of revenge;

(For they can suck me up, my blood,

but ney, they can never taste!)

And when I degrade their pure holy love,

to my earthly dreadful desires,

feeding them with semen and blood,

instead of their daily sips of sacred nectarine,

when I suck'em dry down,

rolling'em deep into dirt, tear and mud,

You are the god of pure taste and tender touch!

Thou art the " word"!

between me; the little shell, and us gods inside!

And yet further my lord,

the one in countless disguise!

You are the smile on trickster's face;

watching us; gods in disguise;

wearing our human skins;

with goose bumps of fears,

and our so very dearly wounds.

Azin Izadifar

January 2011