{"id":421,"date":"2009-05-13T12:39:10","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T12:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/?p=421"},"modified":"2009-05-13T12:39:10","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T12:39:10","slug":"cave-mahnaz-badihianoba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/cave-mahnaz-badihianoba\/","title":{"rendered":"Cave \/ Mahnaz badihian(Oba)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"leftbox\"><img src='https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/media\/2\/20090513-mahnaz 2.jpg' width='124' height='166' alt='mahnaz badihian2009' \/><\/div>\n<p>\nMy soul belongs to nowhere any more<br \/>\nI am like a loose leaf<br \/>\nTraveling headless<br \/>\n <!--more--><b>Cave <\/b><\/p>\n<p>I live in this big cage <br \/>\nBig and beautiful<br \/>\nWired with security<br \/>\nCovered with tall rough fence<br \/>\nEnclosed with tall locked doors<br \/>\nWhere neighbors are strange<\/p>\n<p>I live in this city where<br \/>\nFear is hidden everywhere<br \/>\nFear of police<br \/>\nFear of neighbors<br \/>\nFear of loose sex offenders<br \/>\nFear of a gun in everyone&#8217;s hand<br \/>\nFear of Sunday school teacher <br \/>\nFear of virus <br \/>\nFear of terrorists we created<br \/>\nFear of losing<br \/>\nFear of loss<br \/>\nFear everywhere<\/p>\n<p>We are still looking for a place<br \/>\nWhere we feel at home<br \/>\nA place where we can leave the doors opens <br \/>\nTo the aroma of spring<br \/>\nLeave the windows open<br \/>\nTo the music of birds<br \/>\nTo the music of rain drops<br \/>\nWhere we can<br \/>\nBreathe fresh air <br \/>\nAnd stretch our legs<\/p>\n<p>Where we can trust police<br \/>\nTrust the city<br \/>\nTrust the wind<\/p>\n<p>My soul belongs to nowhere any more<br \/>\nI am like a loose leaf<br \/>\nTraveling headless<\/p>\n<p>I am tired of punching security codes<br \/>\nWhen I sleep at night<br \/>\nWhen I leave my house every day<\/p>\n<p>I am not used to living in a big cage where <br \/>\nAny time I turn the TV on<br \/>\nSomeone murdered, someone died, someone raped <br \/>\nSomeone became an overnight millionaire<br \/>\nAnd Iraq again had another tragic day<br \/>\nAnd there was another hanging in <b>Tehran<\/b><br \/>\nAnd more hunger in one more place<\/p>\n<p>Oh I am looking for a place away from my cage<br \/>\nAnd I am asking you<br \/>\nDo you know how much is the foreclosure price of a <b>cave<\/b> ? <\/p>\n<p>\nSF\/5\/2009<br \/>\n &#8212;&#8212;<br \/>\n<i>Mahnaz Badihian (Oba) is a poet and translator whose work has been published into several languages worldwide, including Persian, Turkish, and Malayalam. She attended the Iowa Writer&#8217;s workshop with a focus on international poetry while practicing as a dentist in Iowa City.  Her publications include two volumes of poetry in Persian and a best-selling translation of Pablo Neruda&#8217;s Book of Questions into Persian.  Her most recent publication is a critically acclaimed book of original English language poetry, From Zayandeh Rud to the Mississippi. She has an awarding winning selection of poetry (XIV Premio Letterario Internazionale Trofeo Penna d\u2019Autore, Tornio) translated into Italian by Cristina Contili and Pirooz Ebrahimi. Currently she resides in Northern California where she runs an online multilingual literary magazine, MahMag.org in an effort to bring the poetry of the world together.  She presented a paper on erotic literature by Iranian women in the Diaspora at the American Comparative Literature Association&#8217;s 2008 annual conference. She is a MFA candidate in poetry from Pacific University. A selection of her poems translated by Andr\u00e9s Alfaro into Spanish will be published in 2009. She is currently working on a novel called\u201d Like a Wedding Dress\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My soul belongs to nowhere any more I am like a loose leaf Traveling headless<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":546,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/546"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}