Khosrow Golsorkhi, an Iranian journalist, poet and activist, was accused of plotting to kidnap the Shah of Iran’s son and arrested at the age of 29. In televised court proceedings he defended his Marxist beliefs and compared himself to Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad. He was executed on February 18, 1974, at the age of 30.
EQUALITY
The teacher was shouting at the board.
He flushed angrily
and his hands were covered with chalk dust.
The students in the last row of seats were eating fruits and making noises;
on the other side of the class a student was flipping through a magazine.
None of the students were paying attention
because the teacher was shouting and pointing to the algebraic equations.
The teacher wrote on the blackboard, which reminded us of darkness and cruelty,
1=1
one is equal to one.
One of the students rose
(always one must rise)
and said softly,
“The equation is a blunder.”
The teacher was shocked
and the student asked,
“If one human being was one unit
Does one equal one, still?”
It was a difficult question and the students were silent.
The teacher shouted,
“Yes, it is equal!”
The student laughed,
“If one human being was one unit,
the one who had power and money would be greater than the poor one
who had nothing but a kind heart.
If one human being was one unit,
the one who was white would be greater than the one who was black.
If one human being was one unit,
equality would be ruined.
If one were equal to one
how would it be possible for the rich to get richer?
Or who would build China’s wall?
If one were equal to one,
who would die of poverty?
or who would die of lashing?
If one were equal to one,
who would imprison the liberals?
The teacher cried:
“Please write in your notebooks
one is not equal to one.”
Scarriet 
Nermin said,
July 1, 2020 at 5:09 pm
Its not a very good translation. Comparing the equality of number one to a human got lost in translation..
thomasbrady said,
July 1, 2020 at 10:45 pm
Really? It seems very clear to me.
maryangeladouglas said,
July 2, 2020 at 6:42 pm
It is a beautiful poem and has perfect clarity in its tragedy. In my opinion. I would say if it were my poem but of course it is not, all is solved in the oneness of God but it is difficult now to write of God in that way or maybe it is just difficult to be read the way it is meant. I still think that though. Nothing can break the oneness of God. That is our hope. Our only real one.
maryangeladouglas said,
July 2, 2020 at 6:45 pm
SKATING
skating farther in is skating farther out
I don’t know how I ever doubted it
skating farther out is skating farther in
since I can’t skate anyway
but only in my mind I can pretend
where the light dazzles
the ice on the ponds
and I am caught in Currier and Ives
with a green tinted muff
because it’s December
and crows etched in the near snow in the clouds
I know somehow
it is a familiar landscape
I read early in a novel about Hans Brinker.
his skates of silver.
I will have skates of gold in another chapter..
and pirouette at sunset on a frozen lake
so that the torches of the sun might burn
in deep rose and vermillion Amy Lowell.
your opal images.
it’s winter and my favorite prisms glow.
the sweet old forgotten poems, their legends, true.
I have not forgotten you.
and they are in my heart forever
near the pines laden with snow
and this is for John Greenleaf Whittier too.
For snowboundedness and the brittle air the sense of
home I keep looking for, where is it? under the Tree?
under the festooned tree..imagine with me that
I am in love with poetry;with the immortals.
I want to skate out in my skittery poems on the lake of Time
and breathe and breathe the snow cold air
braiding rubies in my hair.
mary angela douglas 2 july 2020
maryangeladouglas said,
July 3, 2020 at 10:01 am
I KNOW
every day I dig the tunnel deeper
every day I wash the sea out of the door
every day I rinse the curtains
every day is Heaven implored.
I believe in exits from the sorrows.
I believe in sudden bright reprieves
i believe with every click the tumbrills
will unlock and then disclose the keys.
carry just a cloud in your last pocket
meteor showers in your only pail
I know God made earth to be a meadow
only man made it to be a jail
mary angela douglas 3 july 2020
maryangeladouglas said,
July 4, 2020 at 12:02 am
PARLOUR SONG
every day is a star that shines on you
even through the mists.
what will you do
will you remove the cloud cover
will you polish the mirror of the sky
will you sigh oh bye and bye
if I get to it. maybe, in the amethyst afternoon
and withhold your dream horses at the ford
pulling on the jeweled reins…
till the night comes and the moon too.
to shine on you. with missed refrains.
what will you do now in your snowy dress.
there is still enough light to see by. you confess
the vase of flowers in the parlour had
such hopes for you when you brought them in from the garden.
just – try. play something on the piano.
put a glass record on the victrola.
hum to the carpet sweeper. strum on the mandolin.
through the beaded curtains, let a little joy in.
mary angela douglas 3 july 2020
maryangeladouglas said,
July 11, 2020 at 6:28 am
CROSSING THE LAWNS, I SEE THEM BY MOONLIGHT
“boys and girls come out to play
the moon doth shine as bright as day…’
=Old English Nursery Rhyme
crossing the lawns, I see them by moonlight
in fanciful dress and with their antique toys
the children who make no noise by day
ghost children over the merry green
as seen by Blake or in other rhymes
of the English kind in the orchards of Walter De La Mare
scooping bright berries with mirroring spoons and under the
restless trees content with cherries;
trailing the blue mists of dawn
and the rose ones.
silver in their play.
I see them stray and gather each other up again
in circle games
and toss the ball into the heavens so that it is meteor bright so
that the angels retrieve it, laughing
in their variegated Christmas moods.
and there is bread and milk for them as in a fairy tale and
never doom
and sweets too so that the air itself is spun sugar and the
clouds.
and the milk is from the moon
and it shines like pearl poured from the blue the dark blue
pitcher of the skies.
I see them, every boy and girl
and they are free with no disguise
as dreams are until sunrise and beyond
and the world for them is cloth of gold
as it was not on earth
and they are made of the marigold sun the morning one
and know all the exits into God. and right from wrong
as it was for them on earth
and have left me this song.
mary angela douglas 11 july 2020
maryangeladouglas said,
July 11, 2020 at 2:16 pm
HAVEN (FOR VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY)
for Vladimir Bukovsky who, among other notable things, built a castle and tended his rose trees…
I planted a rose garden in my head
and labyrinthine scented too and hedge on hedge
so when trouble came
roses were my only view and quaint
against a silk screened sky I wandered there without reply
away from cares and far far from the needling; needless sighs
and plucked them where they grew;
then more profuse my roses blew
nor torn in the erratic winds
and I could all belief suspend except
for that haven and the fountains pluming near
the orangeries…
and all that blended there to please, to make of solace
a flowery stair and no more ambuscados of words
or pernicious stares or the blank sum glaring everywhere
the workplace blaring the tedious forms the roaring
inspections
and the reprimands for I had roses near at hand
and hedge on hedge since I was born o the rose trees;
a bench of pearl to sit and dream
to make of roses a faerie screen
to forget a thousand thousand stings and all the world’s
scalding: the ratlike gnawing codes to oblivion assigned
where the pale and the emerald waters flowed.
mary angela douglas 11 july 2020
maryangeladouglas said,
July 11, 2020 at 3:20 pm
WE WOULD RATHER
though the day be like a crystal fruit and the glaze on it
of diamonds and topaz, rubies she exclaims, ready to drop into the jewel box of the Princess
still, we would rather have, my sister and I
strawberry shortcake,with Mama or all the ice cream in a malted shake
on a Sunday afternoon and Grandfather asks
do you want that with Hershey’s syrup?
and we look up all saucer eyed with joy and whisper yes
still in our Sunday dresses from church. don’t spill that on yourselves
our Grandmother says. in her caramel voice and we say eagerly
oh no, of course we won’t. and we dont.
though the night be splendid and woven from silk
and the moon like buttermilk churned in a Grecian urn
still we would rather have our allowance dug from our
Grandfather’s pockets earned,
when we get good grades
so that we can buy school paperbacks all the rage or of all the classics in our parade of pennies
and read away all the summer days, the piano days too (after
practicing, Grandmother)and after chores
pushing ourselves off into the swings of reading and in our scuffed shoes Grandfather will polish again by noon on Saturday
and when we are paper dolling it up in our blue room.
mary angela douglas 11 july 2020
maryangeladouglas said,
July 13, 2020 at 1:11 am
I AM NOT
I am not the news that is on TV
I am not whatever it may be
that is trending now I am not.
nor the formulation nor the sucking up vacuum wise of data
on my particular age group, gender, race, proclivities
sensitivities, low low income.
I am not the product of research.
the variable in the equation you have replaced God with.
i am not whatever category=coffin=cubbyhole
you and your colleagues itch to shove me into.
to prove to the world your ingenuity.
in figuring it all out.
I am a child of the living God
I am beyond history beyond time I have a soul
beyond responsibility for what is not mine
or anointed by God for me to address to confess;
beyond all reckoning except
the reckoning of time
of time of time
tuned to my own heartbeat lifeline
part of the living tree of mankind
and the living God. beyond all tears
and recriminations;beyond the judgement of man
so do what you can and I will too
tuned to the reasons I am here.
which God foreknew.
and not you. those who have taken upon themselves
truly a role not assigned to them.
mary angela douglas 12 july 2020