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Joanne Arnott and Mahmud Kianush

Not All Words

Correspondence: one year in seven poems

+ seven images

Not All Words Are Birds by Mahmud Kianush

Pensive and beyond by Joanne Arnott

Illumination by Mahmud Kianush

long ago and far away by Joanne Arnott

Poems Reincarnate by Mahmud Kianush

Windows I, II, III: Arboreal Akkaashi by Joanne Arnott

M. (Mahmud) by Joanne Arnott

All images by Mahmud Kianush

Not All Words Are Birds

I wrote a poem

With crimson ink

On a piece of paper

In turquoise blue

And went to the window

And opened it wide

To welcome the morning sun

Of a serene spring sky.

Suddenly,

before my eyes,

There appeared

a flock of birds,

With their plumage

of rainbow colours,

Circling,

circling,

in a rhythmic motion,

As if performing a ritual

Of a mystical cosmic dance,

And by reflecting the rays of light,

They created something like a micro-image

Of a supernova;

And, after

some long moments

of self-manifestation,

They flew away,

and out of my sight.

I returned to my desk,

To read once more

My new finished poem,

But,

to my wonderment,

The crimson words had disappeared,

And the blue paper

Had turned to white.

It was the sunset

Of a mid-autumn day,

And the blue sky of the horizon

Had begun to fade into a burning crimson,

Setting the windowpanes on flame.

On my desk

A piece of blank paper

in turquoise blue

Was looking expectantly at me,

And on its right side

My black pen,

Filled with crimson ink,

Was left in boredom of silence,

But the poem I had in my mind

Suddenly burned out

And was lost in oblivion.

The flaming radiance of the setting sun

In the receptive,

gleeful eyes

of the window,

Mysteriously urged me to walk over

And watch the magic

of light

and air

and motion,

But what I saw,

I think,

was a visual message

From the God Unknown,

The Almighty Poet,

Whose one and only poem

has been Himself,

Manifested in His creation of Life:

III

In the fiery light

Of the glowing gold

of the setting sun,

Within the clear range of my sight,

It was my long disappeared flock

Of the rainbow coloured birds,

In their glorious flight,

Returning from an unknown journey,

Each bird of the flock, now

Mysteriously,

accompanied by one bird

From a flock of someone else’s

Not in the same rainbow colour,

But in plain turquoise blue.

They circled so close to my window

That for a moment I felt

I was a mirror held

To the firmament of peace and serenity.

Oh, how much more beautiful

would a rainbow seem,

If it could appear

In a turquoise blue sky!

After circling seven times

in front of my eyes,

My extended flock of birds

Suddenly flew away,

And disappeared again.

Poems journey around the world

And bring more poems with them,

Because poets have always been

The scattered citizens of one eternal nation.

Pensive and beyond

In a quiet house

In a quiet room (in a room where music plays)

In a quiet heart (in a tumultuous busy crossroads)

In a quiet moment (in a moment poised at the top of the wave)

In a quiet pen (in a pensive eye within a hurricane)

In a quiet sweep of pen on page (in a sweeping move from never was to fully made)

The scritchscritchscritch (sound of rich colours released in the world)

The house or room, window or page, poem or bird (visited and revisited, flocks and migrations)

The gift (from the well of plenty)

The gift (from the unseen)

The gift (of return, from that which was freely given)

The gift (some birds are angels)

Illumination

A very young,

but not so beautiful poem,

Her green eyes shining

with tears of sorrow,

Was looking,

through her closed window

At the sky,

of a late summer afternoon,

Now adorned with a perfect rainbow.

She had been walking about in the room,

Wandering in the wilderness

Of her lost, lonely soul,

When suddenly,

some illumination occurred,

Either in the awakening light of the window

Or in her own tearful eyes,

And stopped her from wandering.

She blinked and watched,

She watched and blinked,

And at last

A faint smile of amusement appeared

On her very young

but not so beautiful face.

long ago and far away

these are the keys to the places

never returned to

these are the dreams of the child

never born

the imaginary country

siphons the blood of the real

poems reincarnate: look,

she is a painting now

Poems Reincarnate

You are right:
"Poems reincarnate",*
Or, in other words,
Poets are the faithful descendants
Of the creators of meanings,
The musing humanizers
Of the world of appearances,
The myth makers,
The first Adams and Eves,
In the first era after the Fall
                                           to Elevation,
Out of the Paradise of the Mute.

And the Lord God brought
all the wild animals
and all the birds in the sky
                                    to the man
to see what he would name them;
And whatever the man
            called each living creature,
                                    that was its name.

Yes,
       but not so quickly,
                                so impulsively,
And in such a haphazard way!
For naming animals and birds,
            [and before them,
                                      perhaps,
            plants and trees,
            herbs and flowers,
            and after them,
                                    perhaps,
            the fish and other sea creatures],
Adams and Eves
First looked,
For long enough
                    at each one of them
In the mirror of their own feelings
To see if they were in harmony
                                      with their life,
Or hostile and harmful to it.
And then,
With all their love
                            or all their fear,
They created them again
In the images
                 of their human experiences
Which now really existed
And were intimately known

And named and remembered
in metaphors.

All the nouns
were originally metaphors
Made by Man,
The Poetical Animal,
The Creator of the World in Words.
____________________________
* Quoted from a letter

Windows I, II, III: Arboreal Akkaashi

Between the window and the desk

the poet wanders, hesitant, wondering

Words may escape, words

may travel freely

But poet is anchored to the world

with several strong threads

Sometimes like a kite escaping for minutes

on a good breeze

Sometimes, failing to achieve liftoff, entangled

in screens of thought

Sometimes the constraints so paralyzing

Sometimes the net of love, longed for

& secured

Perhaps the poet can fly forth, on the wings

of a wish

or a poem well-said

Travelling through the bodies of trees

on vocalizing winds

Trees sing back with elder powers

talent to remain, long, enduring

Beyond words the poet sings

back and forth to the song of trees

Celebrating joys and sorrows

through colour and form

In the park, in the yard, far from home, nearby

a reciprocal song

Pitched below the human ear, reassuring

the human heart

I picture his house

Inside there are a thousand books

Elegant scrawl of Farsi

Boxy pragmatics of English

I picture his apartment

Inside there are ten thousand books

Dust-laden parchments

Expansive scrolls

I picture his room

Inside there are one hundred thousand books

The internet, yes, of course

And all that came before

I picture his poem

Inside of which he is just now found

The oceans of time washing through him

The elegant birds lifting off once more

Not All Words presents a multi-genre correspondence between poet, author, editor, translator, broadcaster & visual artist, Mahmud Kianush (Iran/UK) and poet, author, editor, activist, & blogger, Joanne Arnott (Manitoba/BC, Canada).

About the images:

I was amazed when I found out that there are many beautiful artworks hidden in the barks of trees, waiting for me to discover them. Now I have about 2000 photo-paintings in my computer, some 100 of them completed and titled, ready to be exhibited. Another somewhat funny thing about my art of photo-painting is the Persian name I have made up for this peculiar art. Since of the two stages of the artistic creation, the first is “photography”, in Persian “akkaassi”, (ع کاسی ), and the second, the more creative stage, is “painting”, in Persian “naghghaashi”, (نق اشی ), then the child of the marriage between these two arts, can be called “akkaashi”, (ع کاشی ), that is “photopainting”.

Mahmud Kianush

Acknowledgements

Some of these poems have been previously published:

“Not All Words Are Birds,” “Windows Then and Now,” in Mahmud Kianush, Poems of the Living Present Rockingham Press London UK 2014

“Not all words are birds,” “Pensive and beyond,” in Joanne Arnott, http://joannearnott.blogspot.ca/2013/12/poems-journey-around-world.html

“Not All Words Are Birds” has also been set for choral presentation by Ugis Praulins, For Sonora Vaice (soprano solo, violin, cello and piano), and premiered at Ermanu muiza, 18 May 2014. (c) 2013 Mahmud Kianush - (c) 2014 Ugis Praulins. We encourage you to seek out this work, for fully inter- dimensional inspiration and enjoyment.