Those who carry nothing within
are forced
to decorate the outside.

And since no thought
drips from them,
they exhibit their skin—

for skin
is the last temple
of the empty.

Ah—
these preachers
of the ring-light and lens,

how desperate they are
to be seen—

for they do not
see themselves.

They do not live—
they lodge
inside moments,

and each of their smiles
is like a notice
of a thought’s death.

The hollower the inside,
the sharper the pose;

the quieter the mind,
the louder the ad.

They do not think—
they accumulate.

In place of conscience—
metrics.

In place of soul—
algorithm.

In place of worth—
likes.

They say:
“I inspire.”

But their inspiration
is nothing
but the yawn of repetition;

and their followers—
a crowd
that with every click
forgets
a little more
of itself.

In an age
where thought
no longer sells,

the body
becomes philosophy.

And what a catastrophe—
when the whore
names herself
“god,”

and the spectator
kneels.

From Poems of Madness
Ali Delshad Tehrani

Here—
each one shouts
to have his existence heard,

and the more he speaks,
the less he is.

Ah—these virtual arenas
of self-display,

where silence is disgrace,
and emptiness
is posted.

Once, man worshipped gods—

now, mirrors.

And the more one manufactures
his own image,

the less of himself
remains.

Social networks—
O marketplace
of modern slavery,

where each one names
his chain
“profile.”

Here, man no longer thinks—
he reposts.

No longer feels—
he performs.

He molds his emotions,
filters his suffering,
and hashtags his lies.

Here, truth—
worn out by repetition—
falls from meaning,

and falsehood,
by the roar of the crowd,
stands erect.

Here, all are seen—
yet no one
is understood.

All speak—
yet none
say.

All smile—
yet none
laugh.

O virtual man—

you fled the cage
only to be imprisoned
in a mirror.

You feared solitude—
and now live
in a crowd
that does not see you.

You measure your inside
with likes,

and the worth of being
with views.

You are no longer being—
you are display.

Ah—how well
you have learned
to pretend.

But even pretending
is no longer yours:

the system imitates for you,
the algorithm fabricates feeling,

and you—
you merely play
the role
of “I.”

In the world of networks,
man no longer lies—

he himself
has become
the lie.

Where all speak,
thought hides
in silence.

Let your page
remain dark—

perhaps,
for the first time,
you will touch
being.

From Poems of Madness
Ali Delshad Tehrani

Prescription—
not for the cure it brings,
but for the pleasure it stirs—
that is why
it is desired.

Sermon—
not as an iron nail
driven into the stone
of frozen minds,
but from the urge
to blend,
to dissolve into the herd
of the unknowing—
that is how
it leads.

Do not think
the pulpit
belongs only
to the mourner
or the priest.

Have you not seen
the modern pulpits?

Those
who tear their chests open
for myths of motivation,
for chanters of rate,
for gurus of rape.

O steadfast addicts
of remedy,

O prostrators
before deceitful saints,

O pleasure-seekers
at the breast
of naked stupidity—

what have I to do
with disputation
among hollow minds?

O true seekers
of solution in this age,

O worshippers of ignorance
in place of the divine,

O sworn to paths
that never cohere,

O lovers
of filth
cloaked as teacher—

all of you,
hasten
toward dissolution,

for more words
of wisdom
avail nothing.

From Poems of Madness
Ali Delshad Tehrani

Tourist—
O creature of two lives:

one moment
on the dry land
of boredom,

the next
in the swamp
of reels.

Now on Instagram,
now beneath X.

You flee
your pitiful emptiness—

yet in your suitcase
you carry nothing
but it—piece by piece

In your selfies
the only symmetry
is

the graveyard
of history
behind you,

and the face
of an ape.

You do not taste culture—
you lick its image.

You do not experience—
you wrap it
and post it.

You do not find yourself—
you gift-wrap
and export yourself.

O tourist
addicted to tech,

O colonizer
of the twenty-first century.

Your slaves—
the suffering poor,

the countless homeless
asleep
in silent streets,

the migrants
scarred
by exile.

Your legions—
like-worshipping beggars,

zombie followers
without gods.

Your patrons—
the endless lords
of capitalism,

raised high
upon the rotting bones
of Nazism,

hiding
behind the mask
of fascism.

What remains
after you—

the rise
of Airbnb,

the climb
of rent,

the fading
of culture,

and the digital
disfigurement
of the human.

From Poems of Madness

Ah, godless saviors!

They have sold the soul
and now prescribe salvation.

Whoever does not know
what he himself wants
now dares
to guide another.

They speak of suffering—
yet their suffering
is the loss
of clients.

They preach self-knowledge
without ever
having smelled
their own depths.

Ah—
what a carnival
they have built
out of human anxiety
and meaninglessness.

They manufacture illness
to sell the cure.

They scatter fear
to deliver hope.

They call it
motivation—

yet it is nothing
but the daily injection
of ignorance
into the restless veins
of mankind.

If only they deceived others—

but they too
are deceived.

For whoever believes
himself saved
is already lost
in the deepest confusion.

They do not say:
Think.

They say:
Repeat.

And from every worn-out word
they forge a slogan:

Believe!
Let go!
Be yourself!

Yet they do not know
that the self
is not something
you become—

it is something
you lose
moment
after moment.

I have seen it:

In their eyes
there is no light—
only the reflection
of a phone screen.

In their voices
there is no wisdom—
only the recorded voice
of another.

In their hearts
there is no love—
only the hunger
for more followers.

Ah, life coaches—

priests
of a churchless age,

those who,
in the absence of God,
sit in His place,

and in the absence
of meaning
sell prescriptions
for success.

To them I say:

Step down
from the pulpit.

There is no truth
in your sessions—

only the fear
of meaninglessness.

And there is no light
in your eyes—

only the reflection
of a ring light.

From Poems of Madness

You—
the last refuge of man,

you—
the final provision
for the journey
of nihilism1—

you dragged
art
into vulgarity.

O servants
of cancerous masses,

O slaves
to herds
of likes
and scrolls,

like sheep
whose heads,
instead of green pasture,
are buried
in a black mirror2,

their mouths
ruminating
the word
more3.

Art,
seen too often,
turns whorish.

And what does a whore care
for being pawed?

Whoredom
is not
the trade of flesh.

The one
who sells flesh
has something
to offer.

But you—
what do you offer
but craving?

What do you thrust forward
but the secretions
of masturbation?

What remains
but emptiness,
so stale
it reeks
of carrion?

O whores
of the age
of attention
and rumination,

O merciless
art-slayers
of the theater
of self-display,

before
your venomous eyes
I bury art
with myself—

in the hope
that one day
someone
will raise it
from the soil
of oblivion.

From Poems of Madness

Confession—

that is the only word
that comes to mind
when I hear
the word therapist.

No—wait.

A dark little chamber appears as well:
a priest
and a groaning child.

O spiritual father
in the robes of pseudo-science!

You are not the Christ
of Christ Recrucified1.

You are the cross itself—
to which
the hands of life
are nailed.

You—
remnant of Freud’s complexes2,
beneath the fading shadow
of Jung3.

You have nothing—

except opening the window4,
except forcing in
the foul air—

nothing
but emptiness.

From your nauseating emptiness
I embrace
nihilism—

and for the crime of adultery5
I am flogged.

From your anxious babble
I lie
with silence
and solitude—

and for the crime of orgy
I am imprisoned.

From your childish prescriptions
I flee
to hashish
and LSD—

and for the crime
of godhood
I am executed.

From Poems of Madness

with all your sermons
you will never persuade religion
to turn away
from suicide.

You stroked
the cold corpse of God1,

hoping
the vanished spirit
might return.

But the corpse
did not move.

You blew your prayers
like spells
into the birth-blind eyes
of these people2.

And the people—
still blind—
ran after you
like a herd.

O savior of religion,

in hope of a miracle
you even slit
the throat of morality
with Abraham’s knife3.

But God was dead

And the dead
save no one.

Upon a straw heap
of myth and belief

you raised
a dazzling palace—

that the first sparks
of doubt
turned
to ash.

O savior of religion,

you sanctified faith
and nailed
the frame of thought
to the wall.

You spoke of reason—

a thing
that appears
only in dreams.

You spoke of wisdom—

yet in that very moment
it was crushed
beneath your foul-smelling
sandal.

From Poems of Madness

The difference between Clown and Crown
is only that r—
erect—
become l.

O old clown,

you who, without Viagra,
cannot even stiffen
your own spine!

A royal crown
belongs only
to madness.

You are deaf.
You are blind.
You are thirsty.

But you are not mad.

With that drug of power,
that magical Viagra,
you even erected
lies.

You made religion
a ladder,

and climbed
its rotten steps
without once looking
at the firm ground.

And when you ascended
to the seventh heaven
of tyranny1,

it was not fear—
but astonishment
at meeting
the void.

I am not the one
who will pull the ladder
from beneath
your weary feet.

I will not, like Sohrab2,
build a boat,

nor cast it
into the water.

I do not want
his pond
of the present3.

Now
the present
is a river—

the very river
Heraclitus4
stepped into.

I am of the descendants
of fire5—

of the burning blood
of Zarathustra,
and the inheritance
of the civilization
of Cyrus.

I will build a fire—

a fire
whose smoke alone
is enough
for your blind eyes.

From Poems of Madness

Nietzsche and Heidegger—

not by fame,
not by any measure of greatness,
are they overmen while I remain an ape,

but because, in reading their works,
I am seized
by a biting sensation
called humiliation.

O modern ape of the city,

you are not even the copycat
of those fearless sages.

From fear
you piss where you stand.

From rage
you merely repeat.

Like a ship without anchor,
you are hurled against two rocks:

the rock of despair in the swamp,
and the rock of hope in a thick fog.

O tedious ape,

you are not in Sein,
not even in Zeit1—
you have merely fled
onto the weary shoulders of science.

From science
you take barren loans.

From philosophy
you borrow stale bread2.

You massacre religion,
yet in the corruption of your being
you still live it.

You are not even worthy
to drag your father’s name behind you3.

Your relation to him
is as a scarecrow to the farmer,

as a pit to a cave,
as an earthworm to a serpent.

O degenerate ape of imitation,
O accursed chameleon of vice,
O narcissist swollen with yourself—

your due is death.
Cease this farce of living.

From Poems of Madness