I Saw the Words Grow Mouldy

Rastinews — Our rhymes grew weary first, then our words…
The word's sharp, honed edge went blunt; the pen, like a bird, dropped onto the page under its own weight.

Every word caught amid the wreckage wrapped itself in the silence of Forough's derelict room.

Those who write, those who cannot, those who wait, those who don't, those who dwindle, those who tire, those who keep hope, those who lose it — all fall silent now at the mouth of the same well.

Even the word grows weary of the person, in time; the burden it carries announces itself in every sigh.

When life's frantic noise cuts out, the weight of the word collapses onto the shoulders.

This silence, I know, is not born of fear of speaking…

We look at the world through the eyes of Sadegh Hedayat's blind owl — no comfort, no promise.

Silence, more often than not, consumes its bearer slowly, like leprosy.

We have come to avoid touching the page; the fear that every sentence will fall to waste in this cycle wins out.

Perhaps the real trouble is that world of counterfeit thought giving off the smell of mold,

sentences lined up one after another as if rolling off the same factory line. All of them clusters of the same rote learning.

And the heaviest of all is the smell of mold…

I have seen words grow mouldy

Sentences that never passed through the sieve of time, carrying the mildew smell of rote memory…

Because some words rot the more they are put on the counter

Don't grieve over what sits on that counter; the smell of mold cannot be hidden — in the end, it spreads…

Samuel Beckett once said, "Every word is an unnecessary stain upon silence."

That hollow crowd, that world of counterfeit, corrupted words built on consumption… none of it means anything anymore.

To persuade, new strings of words are strung out with all one's might along a line; the line is slowly let out — the silence of a hunter waiting for something to bite…

Words themselves did not wear out; it was those who put them in the service of lies who wore them out.

Now people look not at the sentences but at what stands behind them. Because the brightest words have become the wrapping of the greatest disappointments.

The value of the word was spent in the hands of those who mass-produced it.

Words lost their meaning as they were spent polishing lies instead of voicing the truth.

Today, society's flight from the word is not a flight from truth — it is a flight from the false words put in truth's place.

And yet a person will not let go of the last word on the tip of the tongue.

They fit their voice to the rhythm of an old saz echoing between the walls.

Not for its joy, but seeking a melody from the shared language of that very sorrow.

When poetry goes unwritten, a kilam wanders on…
the rhythm carries on.

Words fall silent, sorrow remains.
Like the mark of a blade, the word too leaves its mark.