Five Poems by Tara Mokhtari

Anti-Genre #6 brings us Tara Mokhtari’s rousing, film-like vignettes.  Recalling “flashbulb memories,” these poems function like vivid snapshots of a moment, and the circumstances under which we heard a piece of surprising news.  *** Fucking Time Sometimes I’m breathless under the full weight of its salty cataleptic body, and I’m pinned down and resisting for days. Other times, I have it by the balls, and I whisper softly to it: be still, let me see what you’re made of. *** Once Upon A Future As the sun set for the last time over Earth a strange thing happened: the sky and the soil and everything in between turned burning white. Despite our collective conviction about The End, and how it would be, for the first time in the history of human experience, we could see  *** If I Leap If I leap from fourth floor balcony onto del Marques de l’Argentera to become the bus driver’s soap opera the therapist’s bread and butter the maker of a murderer (then that would be my legacy) If I leap and let the chill wind carry me over the alley to land on Gaudi terrace step inside stranger’s dwelling and into strange new life to find new suffering… If I leap with just Estacion de Franco for witness: would I get caught? *** Transcending Tongues The ache is the same in every...

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