Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature. Over 15,000 daily subscribers. Over 7,000 archived posts.
Majid Naficy: Censoring Love
A mullah censor says that the body parts of women Must be omitted from couplets of my book Like this couplet which I heard Fifty years ago in the village of Pudeh: “From the hillside there comes a group of girls All with white breasts like doves. May God not bless their mother Who did not let me kiss their lips.” My publisher does not know whether to laugh or cry. So he replaces “breasts” and “lips” With dot dot dot. But the mullah censor does not accept the dots Because they are the signs of empty places. Suddenly, I remember Ezzat Who was shot in Evin Prison And buried in the Cemetery of the Infidels In a mass grave without any gravestones. No! No! My dear publisher! Do not cover this empty place, Let the dots remain Otherwise, no one will know tomorrow That in my book Love has been torn To pieces.
Majid Naficy is a Persian-American poet living in Los Angeles. His books include Father & Son (Red Hen, 2003).
Vox Populi 
It is only in the last ten years that I have taught myself to say “fuck,” but when I wrote a poem about my father’s infidelity, what else could I do? Yet, recently when I used it in a tiny book of poems about bugs I wrote with friends, I asked to substitute another word in one home-made copy just for my granddaughter who is the child of my minister son. What else could I do? Thank you for this beautiful poem.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow!
LikeLiked by 3 people