Poems on Iran, Immigration, & Diaspora:
 
Leaving Mashhad
 
Seven was the epicenter of my pain
where all branches of my broken tree offshooted.
In one day, I lost my entire extended family.
Leaving Mashhad, where my heart is buried.
 
In my sleep, every night, I visit it.
In homage, I place intensely fragrant
yellow and pink roses lingering on the tomb
of my family’s memories.
 
I left behind my grandfather’s mansion
where heaven itself shifted its clouds
to touch its ground.
In the four-person swing
beside droves of perennial multicolored pansies.
 
My grandmother making lavashak
from our plum-filled orchard.
Letting the generous sun
dehydrate a thin layer of familiar sour-sweet tastes.
 
In summer’s nights,
we would dance in the garden.
Nighttime watering of
Lantana flowers would release
a luscious circular musk, hugging us.
 
My mother, brother,
uncle Hameed, aunt Naheed, aunt Gita
and my seven cousins—
laughing under the cheerful star-filled music.
Extending our hands, elegantly flying.
 
While my maternal grandparents
nurtured us with their gaze.
They, the link to our invisible ancestral cord.
Thousands more stood proudly, quietly loving us,
blending in the darker edges of the night.
 
Seven was the year I was spewed out
onto the Atlantic shore.
Wet and suffocating, separated from my home.
 
My only respite—
with my mother and brother
we became reunited in my father’s arms,
our tenacious savior.
 
Yet, how can perfection be left behind?
Where can I retrieve the fragments of my ruptured soul?
 
Originally published in About Place Journal: The Ground Beneath Us Issue, May 2026

Link: Shahrzad Taavoni – The Ground Beneath Us – About Place Journal
 
 
Oh Iran
 
I like to escape the four walls of my nostalgia
and guide you through the cracked skylight.
Fly together as two white doves
into the freedom of the supernal sky.
I want to nurse you back to health
while I nest in your arms
my dear birth mother.
 
For decades,
they polluted and marred you—
but you are wise, wondrous, and strong.
And your forest lungs will regrow and regenerate.
 
I hold on to your glistening garment—
one potent drop
satisfying my memories for decades.
 
Since our vast separation,
I still hear your festive kamancheh street music.
I still whiff the fire-roasted salty corn
and effervescent, fresh-cut cucumbers.
I still smell your vast, fragrant flower gardens
pigmenting with explosive, brilliant colors.
I still hear the honks of cars speaking Morse code.
I still hear the serenades of the call to prayer.
I still taste the rich, rose flower and saffron ice cream.
I still marvel at the insights of your patterned geometric architecture.
I am still in an embodied dance
swirling under your intricately patterned
Persian-rugged rooftop.
 
Lamenting, crying, pleading, and praying—
I await the day you will be free.
We who came from your stardust
have endured half a lifetime of patience
steadfast to our multigenerational, eternal hope.
And when that day breaks open
we will all suddenly cry a sea of fresh-water tears
that will purify our sorrows
feeding your drought-thirst soil
into an oasis
you are destined to be.
 
Originally published in About Place Journal: The Ground Beneath Us Issue, May 2026

Link: Shahrzad Taavoni – The Ground Beneath Us – About Place Journal
 
 
Los Angeles Transplant
 
I am a small part of a body
cut off from my roots.
A pomegranate shoot
transplanted in the soil
of my next of kin: Los Angeles.
 
Every morning
LA’s sun jolts
my heart to reset
while every night
my phantom heart
buried in Mashhad
awakens.
 
Even if smog covers the air like steam
and the rain forbids itself.
Even if it’s too crowded
too covered by asphalt,
I still want to grow
in what is now my home.
 
Originally published in About Place Journal: The Ground Beneath Us Issue, May 2026

Link: Shahrzad Taavoni – The Ground Beneath Us – About Place Journal
 
 
Poems on Healing & Transformation:
 
Tear Catcher’s Alchemy
 
I want to catch my tears
one by one.
There is one angry drop,
enraged by injustice.
Another in despair,
sad and longing.
Another frozen with fear.
I want to collect a sampling
of these tear personalities.
 
One by one,
until my tiny,
iridescent glass
tear bottle is full.
 
On a sunny day,
I will place it on the windowsill.
The prayer lights
will strum the plethora
of its harp, peaceful rays.
Shooting multitudes of colors,
infusing my tears into a mix
of metallic lights.
 
As the chemistry
of light and time
takes over,
my tears will transform
into a perfume—
rich, flowery, citrusy,
illuminating, uplifting, wise.
 
I will wear it proudly.
The fingerprints
of my sweat emotions
will further alchemize its fragrance.
 
Then I will bathe myself in the ocean,
purifying and shedding
the last trace.
All remnants of my pain
becoming unperceivable in its vastness.
 
Originally published in Soul Forte Journal: Issue 12, August 2025
Link: Issue 12
 
 
If Happiness is Like Water
 
I’d like to be:
air bubbles in the ocean
zooming upward to the surface, bursting—
giggling to commune more oxygen.
water persevering, slivering
finding cracks
between doors.
steam perfectly laid
upon a mirror
scribbling
I love you.
and ice atop the Alborz mountains
preserving
my sacred memories.
 
Originally published in Soul Poetry, Prose & Arts Magazine, Fall issue, November 2025
Link: Online Flipbook
 
 
On Aging
 
I’d like to be ancient honey—
mixed with angelica, cardamom,
and orange blossoms
from the monastery Alps of Chartreuse.
 
Its aroma and taste—
more lusciously potent
with each passing year.
 
As my body ages and withers,
my soul becomes permanently preserved
continually blossoming.
Time itself an alchemist
of sweet, wise medicine.
 
Originally published in Lone Mountain Literary Society, February 2026 (print only)
Link: LMLS: The Nature of Things | #4 | BookBaby Bookshop
 
 
Nature Poetry: Gardens, Flowers, Light & Mysticism:
 
The Snowflakes of Summer
 
Day by day,
hour by hour
your form undergoes metamorphosis
like ecstatic butterflies bursting open.
 
As one poppy withers,
three more burst forth:
bright salmons,
alluring reds,
whites splashed with pink,
violets wrinkled in crescendoing shades.
 
Inside them:
yellow and black light bulbs,
sprouting hairs
like hypnotic rays of light.
Golden pollen glistens,
smeared everywhere.
 
Living gossamer
cosmically unfurling.
So delicate it melts at a touch,
petals cascading down.
Each bloom unique,
like magical fingerprints of snowflakes.
 
The ecstatic shivers
of being wrapped in warm colors.
A testament to divine existence
and exquisite intelligence.
 
Originally published in Soul Forte Journal: Issue 12, August 2025
Link: Issue 12
 
 
Nur
 
I’m in love. But not
the kind of love you’re thinking of.
I’m a snowflake melting
devoted to the first spring’s sunlight.
A houseplant aching for a window—
thirsting,
wanting.
The sun beams within my vessel
with everything I consume.
Cucumbers, basils, spearmint,
and amaranth leaves.
Borage, marigold, nasturtium,
and anise hyssop flowers.
The moonlight coils me within a silky cocoon
while crickets and frogs tickle me
with the chorus of their jubilation.
God’s light
cycling and recycling—
inhaling and exhaling
facets of nature.
 
Originally published in Amethyst Review: October 17, 2025
Link: Nur – a poem by Shahrzad Taavoni – Amethyst Review
 
 
Photosynthesis
 
The sun’s devotion
infuses an alchemical warmth
creating an angelic metamorphosis
The bodies of leaves
uninhibited
given life to exponentially stretch out
Its intricate veins
full of green blood
absorbing love
emitting charged
euphoric oxygen
 
Originally published in Closed Eye Open: August 2025 (Maya’s Micros)
Link: Maya’s Micros Ed. 35 – The Closed Eye Open
 
 
Folded Light
 
A quaint square paper—
reconstructed
into the limitless space of imagination.
Materializing
volumes of boxes.
Shaped like
curved ships
jagged stars
elongated vases
symmetrical flowers.
A magician puffs air—
a three-dimensional balloon
swells, stretching into existence.
A folded crane sleeps.
The journey of dreams
imbues it with celestial life.
Come dawn, the crane flies—
its skin’s creases shifting and shimmering
with blue-blossomed patterns.
 
Originally published in California Quarterly: October 2025 (Print and online)
Link: California State Poetry Society: CQ 2018-2025
 
 
Daylight and Moonlight Cats
 
I have two cats:
an exclusively indoor
white, long haired
luxurious Siberian.
And an exclusively outdoor
Maine Coon, neighborhood cat.
While my Siberian is pampered
taking long daytime naps belly up—
my vigilant Main Coon cat
shadows me everywhere.
Right turn where
the enchanting willow tree’s tentacles sway.
Left turn where the third stop sign stands next to the plush orange Lillie’s.
Above the hill where
the quint stained glass
Victorian church stands.
Semi-feral, I once thought he was heinous
but I found that
he is fiercely loyal.
He protects my crops
scouting squirrels
befriending me over catnip
I grew for him.
Purring and rubbing his body
around my legs.
Slow, graceful movements
like bioluminescent moon jelly fish in water.
Gazing through my consciousness
with piercing, understanding eyes
that change from yellowy amber
to moss green.
 
Originally published in Loch Raven Review: Volume 21, No. 2, December 2025
Link: Shahrzad Taavoni | The Loch Raven Review
 
 
Gardens of Embroidered Love Tokens
 
A vast enchanted garden exists right in my backyard—
a transposed cloud from a magical time and place.
Each garden within another—
handmade, intricate lace,
carefully embroidered love tokens.
 
In May’s perfect Goldilocks weather,
I stroll and let the wind release my worries
while the flowers use them for fertilizer.
Purple, red, white, and yellow irises.
Hushing pink and electric, fuchsia peonies.
Vibrant yellow yarrows
and cookie-cutter-shaped coreopsis.
 
I let the scents of roses guide me
into the secret arch of the next garden—
a musical amphitheater of soft, sacred fragrances.
A little girl is performing—
magnetically singing and dancing
entrancing her parents with proud captivation.
 
I then enter the terrace gardens
where a mother lies on the grass.
The gravitational pull too tempting.
She says she is “lost”,
can’t find her husband and two children—
Gleaming, as the lavender field
potpourris her and encases her
around carved castle bushes.
 
The lingering scent of honeysuckle
draws me to a bridge.
The other side:
the aroma of black-tea steaming out
from a crescent-shaped, tiny house
made from childhood dreams.
A circular fountain cradles beside it
cuddling chestnut leaves—
floating earthly geometric fireworks.
 
Water tiptoes down a rock waterfall
into a koi fish pond—
their bodies splashed with neon yellow, gold, and orange.
Colors flashing like nightclub lights.
Their long, horse-like tails, elegantly dancing
as monarch and swallowtail butterflies’ wings
blink and clap beside my feathery hair.
 
Originally published in Tiny Seed Journal: March 13, 2026
Link: Gardens of Embroidered Love Tokens – Tiny Seed Literary Journal
 
 
Poetry on Love & Myth:
 
Isabella’s Dream
 
The desert, cracked and parched,
anguishing for rain to kiss it.
A connection,
warm reunion:
two souls touching.
 
Finally, the empathy of rain
flooded a loud thunder of relinquishment.
A thousand years of prayer.
Her land was primed
in enriched receptivity.
 
The flood of her tears
fed poppy seeds.
They reincarnated
into a red ocean of poppies.
So far and vast,
the eyes cannot grasp its end.
 
Perennial perpetuity,
eternally reawakening each spring.
The longing’s thirst quenched
by the victory of dreams.
 
Originally published in Soul Forte Journal: Issue 12, August 2025
Link: Issue 12
 
 
Fire, Water and Light
 
When his words would touch her,
goosebumps would rise,
small hills erupting,
hidden from his eyes.
She would leave subtle clues,
quietly smirking,
illuminating the slivered crescent moon.
 
He would light small tea candles.
One by one
splashing dew drops
upon the aura of her skin.
 
This was a love that could fully fertilize.
They had the rare, essential elements:
fire, water and light.
But he carried a birth mark.
One that reminded her
of a former lover’s rancid wine.
 
She thought he would not accept her.
Her porcelain body unmarked,
steeped with the flavor
of tea leaf innocence.
Her tribe: the ephemeral wind.
His: lattice ancient roots.
 
Their hearts were half water-filled caverns.
Their interplaying waves,
quivering touch.
Cloistered,
a meek candle
hiding the breadth
of their capacity to love.
 
Her tribe called her.
She moved like the breeze,
extinguishing the oxygen
of their first flint fire.
 
Originally published in Soul Forte Journal: Issue 12, August 2025
Link: Issue 12