Yasmin Hemmat writes

The Barren Field of Requiem

I was born in a distant and solemn 

Kingdom of hatred and destruction

Near the silent sea of fire

In a city crowded with gloom

My life was written in the

Book of the history of grief

Chanted by scops

In interminable deathly hours

The world must know the

Blind witches of time

Turned my lofty flower bed of dream

Into the barren field of requiem.

Blind Witch -- Miklos Ligeti

Yasmin Hemmat writes

The Entrance to the New Womb

When I blink out, the whole universe disappears

and all I can make out is

encroaching darkness,

the utter loss of warmness,

a plain which is abandoned by its sun.

When I blink out, I feel the disappearance of

the ponderous burden of being

and all I can perceive is

my weightless soul

raging against the dying of the light.

But what about the eternal light which I should see,

the entrance to the new womb,

the emptiness,

the shapeless void in which is

shaped a new life.

New York Street with Moon -- Georgia O'Keeffe