For those interested, some more on Farsi poetry.

Farsi Poetry from Afghanistan

Persian Poetry in Farsi

I like this one:
Hafiz, a poet who lived in the 14th century.

Just curious, why equipoise? It is an anabolic steroid used mostly in animals. I know ...

It was too dark so I kindled a candle.
We were the shadows cast on the wall,
doing their incomprehensible dance.
The night was so long
that the wax in the candle ran out,
but we were not lost in the darkness
because that seemingly endless night
you made fireflies spring from my body.

You were the dream of my hot summer nights,
that dream that came like unexpected rain.
You were the zenith of my rising sun
and the gentle glow of my midnight moon.

Every night your hands left their mark on me
like your feet leave their steps etched in the sand.
Deep in my sleep I would hear your soft voice;
a whisper to wake me in the darkness.

Your warm skin felt delicate against mine.
Your fragrant hair filled my nights with delight.
I imbibed everything wholesome from you.

You were my strength, like the sun is the strength
of trees and mountains. You were my freedom,
like the wind is the freedom of all birds.

Oh, I agree with you entirely, in a perfect world, the board would be clean. There will always be people who post things we don't like. Well, there should be a rants and raves board for pawns who want to post anything. Maybe that would help the other boards. Enough said, let's get back to poetry!

I am just saying, you suffer for no reason. All I do is look at the poster's name, I don't even bother reading when I know it is somebody who has nothing good to say.

It never occurred to any of you that there is another policy which works just as well as prescreening, banning or whatever, and it is ignoring. I ignore bad posts just like I ignore a pebble on the street under my shoe. Bad posts are ineffectual and meaningless. The problem with all of you is that you insist on reading every byte. If a certain poster is an idiot, as soon as you see his message, ignore him. If that person keeps posting stupidity, you just keep on ignoring them. Eventually they get bored and leave. Problem solved.

BJ, go to the Uncensored Poetry Fellowship. Over there you can post anything you like. In fact, we could do with something more provoking.

Not me. And my shoes are really dirty! LOL I am not a Jew though. I know some people will take offense to your rap. Let's see how long it lasts.

I think we should honour Stardust's wishes and let this board go back to the way it was, for poems only. There is an Uncensored Poetry fellowship where people can post anything without censorship.

I am wondering why redsales post was removed. He did not offend anybody by merely criticizing the moderating on the board. I saw his post and it was removed 3 minutes later. There was nothing offensive in it. If this board is only for posting poems, without discussions of any kind, it should say so clearly in the description.

I found this interesting. When I first read the "rap" I must say that it was not offensive but rather pointless and stereotypical. I felt it was offensive only to the extent that it did not address bourgeois sensibility. It rather spoke vaguely of an urban reality of life in American ghettos. It is a reality that does not agree with America's white middle class.

I found the rap pointless simply because rather than adressing the root causes of the "rapper gangsta" reality it merely internalized the gangsta behaviour. The writers of the rap seemed to behave merely as if being a gangsta rapper was cool, rather than talking about the social causes of life in American ghettos. There is some very high quality rap that does act as a form of social protest rather than some distorted idea of what "cool" is.

Well, I felt that banning and hiding the posts was uncalled for simply because there is such a thing as freedom of speech. I might find that their rap does not agree with my petit bourgeois sensibility. However, my individual views are unimportant because freedom of expression is more important than what makes me uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is not about stroking somebody's middle class ego or writing about some sentimental ideal of the romantic.

Well, I considered posting some of my poems here, but I refuse to do it if the only writing allowed is that writing that agrees with a middle class view of the world.

Who is keeping tally of the votes? Can a person submit more than one poem?