Two Poems by Hasti
Read two new poems by London-based poet Hasti, weaving together influences from Hafez to alternative hip-hop, Black poetry, and Iranian cinema. Titled 'Future-La' and 'Yek Atash', these vulnerable poems see the speaker absorbing unfathomable turbulent change in a world where 'we've hewn a home ... in empire's gut'.
With an illustration by Simone Khanyi Hadebe.
Supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.
Future-La
after the Fugees, Hafez, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Forough Farrokhzad
Singing in the front yard — oh la la la,
it’s I have sinned a rapturous sin, it’s
devoted action at a distance, the
scent of oxtail and frankincense, the way
we’ve hewn a home here in empire’s gut, that
us drunken nightingales, we
still trill in the heart of it, every rock
overturned, eye to eye with the undead. When
the horror hits, me and حافظ, we’re
in the tavern raising a glass, doing
whatever we can, unsure if our
feelings are our own, wondering what thing
will be the next to pierce, like O!
I wish I could speak like divine music, like la la la —
eerie newsflash, dancing in death — it’s
enough to make you clutch at the
myths. The only flag I serve is a natural
red rose, the only king on the chessboard. La
rêve is a bud I cling to tightly, knowing that
it costs too much, that all people deserve the
earth, our world country of refugees,
arms filled with red fruit and fire to bring.
Yek Atash
after ‘Yek Atash’ by Ebrahim Golestan, ed. Forough Farrokhzad
Out in the wide dark
I heard it howl, and the statue fell
in two. Mirror-walls catching, burn residue
of grief: its spiked menace, torqued posture
and clasp of delirium — faces
of monsters, uncles and friends sit
in dust on the table, the agenda
working its body to a rage.
The flames are pooling
in and around thousands
of neon-green, flickering
eels, their coils demanding blood
like the long teeth that eat them.
Again in the nightmare
I am unheroic. I think it over
in uncertain textures, tell people who need me
that I don’t know. All choked up —
fire columns blaze on the horizon, unquenched
and hurtling — if only I could read the future, act,
believe the words of men
in power, love harder than money
billowing into the air of the sky.
'Future-La' is a Golden Shovel [a poetic form invented by poet Terrance Hayes] written after the Fugees’ ‘Fu-Gee-La'; it was written during the massacre of Iranian protesters in January 2026, for the RAP Party [a live literature event series created by poet Inua Ellams] on 25 February 2026.
