Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Scheherazade is a poem based around the Arabic tale ‘One thousand and one nights’.
In the story King Shahryar is a man who finds out his first wife is unfaithful, as a result he decides to marry a new virgin every day whilst beheading the previous day’s wife.
Scheherazade, a young woman, volunteer...
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It's not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it's more like a song on a policeman's radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means
we're inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we'll never get used to it.
Scheherazade was written by Richard Siken.
Richard Siken released Scheherazade on Fri Apr 15 2005.
Section #21 [of You Are Jeff] is my favorite. I think it’s the companion poem to, the poem in opposition to, Scheherazade. I like it even more than I like Scheherazade. I still can’t read that section in public. I fall apart.
-Richard Siken in response to a Tumblr ask