In Loving Memory of Simon (1992-2022)
*
in the city that screams
beauty occurred to me
between the city and the city
there’s a body of water
and a ferry
*
we have found in ourselves
a great proximity to danger
we are born of fire
and blissful taste of forget
I forget how many Is I have written into myself
documenting oscillations
*
intercontinental railways and their crimes against humanity
that wall of screams thick from the hand reaching through
a membrane between the closet and its outpoured viscera
outside the window, looking in: a violence and a cup of tea
*
we opened our lexicon to new expressions of love
but there was a soft mechanical disagreement
a dead person, waiting to be called into the coffin
I understand more and more this very routine of grief
Kant and his boring fucking ideas
Kant and his boring fucking life
*
a play about violence
from the opportune role of suspicion
a play about lovers, trapped in an eternal cam show
down and into any defined Scene says the Toronto Punk
having lived in Berlin, quoting legends of industrial techno
a play about small-time brokers and their small-town stocks
a play about silence
with minimal audience interaction
*
the 12th floor
and your Spinoza Modalities
drunk for a day
I’ll work for restraint
and crash into our
way-too-economical sexes
*
is it legal to walk bare-chested
by the lake
drunk in mishearing?
I’m too tired
for their bottled beer
and Rock-song toonies
blood
dried on fingertips
and blowjob eyes
telegraphed
but not acted upon
*
a dance
to horror’s lyricism
such
a theatrical endtimes
terror/ambush
goodbye to the Heimlich
the bar napkin number mythos
and beer stench kiss
teeth clashing before kneeling
inside the stall
the lost ones
in harmonious Armageddon
in union
our bodies make noise
even when our mouths
are full of sex
when tongues are wrapped
around throbbing viscera
*
listen, I opened my lexicon to pain and it fell short of explanation
I’m a professor of serenity, my day-long braise as luxury
ten thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven cents owed
but in conjured hopes that the creator doesn’t brag of precedence
and the creator IS that seed from which life can manifest
that single pupil that can hold the sky
my flesh consents to being a nest of insects
my consciousness is paying at the door in symptoms
Freud’s retroflex, or Lacan’s enjoyment of the unconscious
I’ll get to the door, dancing in heels
I’ll read your death in your sleep as a joyous rampage
*
I’m walking towards the hurt
an Othello performance
discussed on the labor board
my city has a demon
my city has its own song
long lost to its greatest listeners
my city
just screams
and screams
and screams
*
…
Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (They/Them) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize and 2022’s Arc Poem of the year award and they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize. They are the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry chapbooks. Their debut poetry collection, Me, You, Then Snow, is out with Gordon Hill Press. Their second book WJD is forthcoming in a double volume with the translation of Saeed Tavanaee’s The OceanDweller from Gordon Hill Press, fall 2022. Their collaborative poetry manuscript with poet Klara Du Plessis is forthcoming with Palimpsest Press Fall 2023.
