Ripples and Murmurs
Poet: Alireza Bemanian
|December 19, 2025
© www.bemanian.com
آتشِ مشحون ز گلگون بادهِ ساقی سخا سَکرانه نیست
— Chapter I epigraph, Dr. Alireza Bemanian
The ripples and murmurs,
the babbles and burbles, squishes and splashes,
skyrocket and advance, augment and uplift,
it is the standby girdles, slashes, and cinctures,
the restraints and corsets, which persist and stay.
The goblet and chalice,
the rims and borders, overflow and burst,
the captures and seizures, the instances and flashes,
zoom by and whiz,
the rise and soar constantly surge and soar.
Embark and board, lodge within the flow,
to depict and describe, portray and paint,
the summits of the excursions,
and the peaks of the glimpses and peeps,
the previews and hints.
surround and whelm, contain and exceed.
Then, the bonfire, beacon, and flare,
the rims and brims, and the bubbles and balls,
the patterns, shapes, and forms, precedents, plans, and models,
celebrate and inspire their bestowed roles.
The dropping rain and hail,
melodies of the fallen droplets, the soaring, rising,
and towering hum and thud, tinkle and clatter.
While, prudence of incarnation,
self vibrance, realizations and gestures,
foresee the moments, and foretell the seals
the emerging ticks, proxy pundits, and you to proclaim the deeds.
Not far to see,
the clank and rattle, the sweeping dashes and stampedes,
the retreats and flees, embark and board,
the trudge and thrust, the push and pound,
enfold and girdled combat and battle, to surmise the foresee.
Journey to console, portray and render, expose the disguise,
the pat, touch, and dash,
seek to convey, to gush and carry,
give and send, the essence and core—
gazes and glazes, stares and regards,
the sun’s rays always, enshrine and cherish,
revere and relish.
The goblet, the chalice,
is yours, burst and glut, no borders and adjoins,
the alchemies, passages, chapters and episodes
stun and daze, amaze and surprise.
Hits and clauses,
ratifications and approvals, motions and joys,
the assortments, ranges, and collections are yours,
ride the moment, master the ride.
Trips and convoys, visits and jaunts,
slips and lurches, the rolls and reels,
presage the sharing, spread the urges,
portion allotments, disperse the rations.
Ebbs and fades, recedes and abates,
reveal the moments, parade the context,
not winkle to ignore, intents and aims.
Mounting hills and trains, reward and repay,
loyalties of meanings, overture of the moments,
the fervor and ardor, the stop and pace,
cultivate and enrich, to foster and further,
bestowed and conferred, the encountered, living trail.
Alireza Bemanian
December 19, 2025
© www.bemanian.com
Themes & Interpretations
Core Philosophy
The Dialectic of Flow and Restraint
The poem opens with onomatopoeic water-sounds surging upward, then introduces “girdles, slashes, and cinctures” — restraints that are structural, not oppressive. The central philosophical claim is that constraint and surge are co-constitutive: the chalice’s rim makes the overflow meaningful; the girdle gives the surge its direction. Movement requires form; form enables movement.
The Vessel Without Borders
“The goblet, the chalice, is yours”
The chalice — inherited from Chapter I’s companion poem — undergoes a radical transformation: its borders dissolve entirely. “No borders and adjoins” declares that the vessel has fulfilled its purpose by releasing the contained. Ownership of the chalice is not possession but relationship: the self is neither the containing form nor the overflowing content, but the dynamic living exchange between them.
Acoustic Ontology
Sound as the Texture of Being
The poem’s opening catalogue of onomatopoeia — ripples, murmurs, babbles, burbles — is not decoration but argument: reality sounds like this before it looks like anything or means anything. This acoustic claim recurs throughout (clank, rattle, hum, tinkle, trudge, pat) building a world where the entity and its sound are one continuous fact. Sound here is not phenomenon; it is ontology.
The Cup-Bearer’s Generosity
سخا — The Chapter’s Persian Seed
The chapter epigraph — آتشِ مشحون ز گلگون بادهِ ساقی سخا سَكرانٯ نیست — seeds Stanza 11’s dispersal of portions and rations and Stanza 9’s declaration that the chalice is yours. The cup-bearer’s generosity is the natural behavior of genuine fullness: what is truly full overflows; what overflows, shares. This is not charity but ontological expression.
The Living Trail
“The encountered, living trail”
The poem’s final compound — “bestowed and conferred, the encountered, living trail” — innovates upon the journey metaphor by insisting on the trail’s own aliveness. The traveler does not merely walk a path; the path meets the traveler. This reciprocity between journeying self and living world is the poem’s deepest philosophical gesture: not solitary passage through a fixed world, but mutual becoming — the traveler and the trail each becoming more fully themselves through encounter.
Prophetic Presence
“You to proclaim the deeds”
The poem appoints the reader as herald: “you to proclaim the deeds.” This is not grandiosity but a philosophical claim about testimony. To inhabit the flow fully — to “ride the moment, master the ride” — is to become a witness whose speech carries the weight of authentic experience. The prophet is not one who predicts but one who has truly seen, and who reports from what has been genuinely encountered in the living trail.