Author: Ali Abdolrezaei
Translation: Abol Froushan
Out of the blue, past so many deaths we were born - mad
how would we know the mirror forgets whatever it sees
we believed the wind gets through the chink of the wall
how would we know the wind stays behind a closed door
senselessly past so many deaths we are a graveyard across
we U turn only a hop away from our destination
we weave in and out of outdistancing one another
How many more margins does our distance stretch?
This damned hooha rising from which neighbourhood window
which damned ear does it corner in?
And revolves around which clock hand?
This very tomorrow which rained a remote smile on lips heads
in which station of the wind shall I stand to say Seven?
I'm such a weeping willow for all this withstanding the wind unswayed
that in the whereabouts of the hand on the clock
worn-out by this coming and going of all the Sevens I'm spent
what town calls out its travellers to return? Which road?
I swear in the name of the water that drips from our hand
I won't shrink from wanting you
you just write Death all over my letters
I will live!
Mr! Hey Taxi! Tour of all Isfahan for a thousand!
I threw thirty hearts to the sea to keep three arches for lovers on Khaju bridge
Madam! I'm not afraid of the police
I can raise havoc
and dream long pavement crowds of the main street
rioting in dreamy love making heaths
At times fear is a lecherous mayor
who parks his mistress
Sir! I can move from this house too
become the sidled dream of walls
and be no gypsy lover
I won't blame the moon for distance
this rain that has brought the sea to my side
is a saying that speaks
like a poem or the youth I left behind on a bicycle
I won't blame the moon for distance
When there was no way through
you so short cut that Saturday it poured down from my calendar
There are only two paths ahead
I won't take the third
I am woebegone at the foot of the poem I am writing
Just say I love you and die
these days star means the ultimate woman who's coming
The kite was only a lifelong captive in my hands
A man who with a kiss on a hand calls an old city
A man who walked on his weeping
slept in the dream of your eyes
I am far enough from the sea to be a heretic for you
sit in my eyes and pray at the bottom of the sea
these days star means the ultimate woman who comes
After her 'bird's a goner' poem
like an apple living on a tree side I am wonder struck
and don't know that I means which?
Roads arrive from town to town
bridges from highway to parallel highway
why don't we arrive anywhere?
Still the mirror jails an unnamable
that does everyone's loneliness
Still everywhere there's a road for me to traverse
no pedestrian is the last one alone
no pedestrian practised the man
no pedestrian ever asked hey Mr
and my spouse wept last night
for the coffee house that died under water last night
for the sea embracing the houses last night
I saw the Sea of Chamkhalee in my notebook and crossed it out
the poem is not like the poet
each night wanting a new bosom
you want to let me go?
You think I'll die of grief?
I'll go North Never mind the girls who don't rhyme
- Ding! Dong!
- Who is it?
- It's the Milkman. O the Milkman!
Sorry! I have no child to get more milk
No name to peddle around town
For all the gauges gaping at I Know Not
when do we arrive anywhere?
There where we arrive may be not where you are
for one night that hasn't gone in my arms, stay with me
I'll be spending my days knocking around the margins
following out fallen in love - ever toward you
Even though I hear no wailing in this instrument
say a word and I'll become the song of the reed
I wish the sky had a heart to tear away from me
I wish it hinted at when we'll be feathered together
I'd not have picked from desire's bunch of grapes
and wouldn't have said this bottle shall be wine
I said hey, bring back my furthest desire
what shall I do it didn't work out, will I be yours? Hey?
I wanted to offer you so much heart
to hell it didn't work out, I'll fall in love with another
Not much time was left to the conversation of the cockerels
I said Right
I can't sleep again
I said Right
They must have gagged the cockerels
I said Right
I had to tell you Good bye!
As I was saying right she hung up
I'm standing next to the door
the architecture of your body is etched
on the bed in the corner of the floor
I keep puffing and staring at the hanger
trouser legs from behind whose stripes a bird flew
I wish I clipped its wings forever
Where are you carrying these days?
Whatever there was in the mirror, the pictures intimated
How can I find all sevens in the mirror?
How many more margins does our distance stretch?
How many more seconds Ha?
You pounded the sea on the opposite wall so I sit and watch the extravagance of youth on my face? Just two clock hands till dawn can I stay in the corner of the square, where are your windows?
Next to a man turning the pages of history I flew a glimpse to the skies and said how blue are your eyes!
But my biro was not always blue
only our faces see the mirror and through the chink of a wall a woman
those days my thoughts strolled through the windows of the class
and paused so long on the tree opposite
that autumn beckoned falling in the village
and breaking kept calibrating the wind on my wings
I arrived late for a lifetime
like all the benches in the park
that were installed for the falling of leaves
I'm sick of all this
which road's pebble broke this window?
Who is the one over my hair who left?
They put a night on day and say
yesterday left, today passed away, what do you do tomorrow?
Sometimes I have died a thousand men
Sometimes I have torn God apart
I've lost you in your own very eyes
like the neon death of MIRROR MAN of Armani Street
MIRROR MA of A ma i treet
MI ROR MA o ma eet
MI OR MA ma et
I OR A ma t
I O A ma t
I O A m
I
zzz zapped out...
Water has brought a mirror to watch
the sound of my skin and the alleys
that open out a window on my brow
Gossip dropped in on a sitting
of the women of the alley whose doors had sunset
and gave autumn away to the branches
simply to take you away from me
I have not trampled the yellow of all the leaves
to ask your forgiveness
The pomegranate that was shelved on the branch
never went hunting for suitors
they put a guitar in my hand and a rendez-vous for never
they strolled around in my eyes
snatched all pictures in the mirror
and never noticed this branch doesn't give a stop to the sky
Always the one who slips goes all the way to the bottom
of the precipice, I know
Nevertheless what ever I see in the mirror, is still me
Take a handful of water and tell my face what secret it has to tell
The pomegranate that is toothless?!
If it weren't for the trees, how would you see autumn?
If spring left, how would neighbourhood apples turn red?
I know the one who says 'I love you' has snatched all the apples
otherwise all these stones are the only excuse
for the windows' broken smile
The sound that rushed through the reed has brought me here to say you!
For you to come back from the most closed window
sit at my table
and let that debauched flame which fired at the wing of the moth
come to put a fire on the logs and the alley
to be the haunting ground of so many cockerels
so people see me falling asleep behind a door to say you!
A you who would say, behind every window
there is at times a closed window, why close again?
Sometimes all the clock hands arrive
so you return
and on the side of a street which dawns next to tomorrow
be the green light of me so much if you
if you come back
I'll take that far holy city to my birthplace
'cause you are more beautiful than very
as grand as the dome of the mosque
you're just these carpet flowers and these eyes
that flower on road sides
Strolling on the summer of Chamkhalee,
your hair on my shoulder or is it raining?
If you come back I won't kill myself
If you stay I won't do that either
Every year, like the girls who come, she goes
I thought, just write - You...
the rest is just the murmur of the rain
Sometimes when drop by drop it puts fingers on your shoulder
it wants you to come back and take the sea that has fallen by the wayside
these very circles that reach each other on the water and hold hands
-Hello that means you're a poet?
- If you take smaller than two steps, there is a house I have
The rain weeps berries in your garden
No one says yes twice!
Coolies run around to pick the next load and die empty
Our lives that are passing are not past
if you walk even death won't reach
Always the one who wants without permission
loses without permission
So you alone watch whatever tears I bring
Then write Death all over my letters
I shall live
Without a vase for a lifetime
I have poured a river out of the sea in my backyard
I am bored with the sea surrounding me and the Caspian's plea,
how can I return to Tehran, where I've left myself behind?
No longer will I go back to those days of Langerood
- hot and humid climate suits death
I adore Tehran of Friday's parks, why should I return?
Fallen into the tea cup and the spoon's wake
my eyes keep swaying in and out of
you so stir together sugar, water and wine
they form an accent for all the fantasies I have for you
you're so cold and cruel you drink up the walls
not knowing the mirror doesn't forget its glimpses
When I think of you, I let the window embrace me
and wipe the moon with a cloth
that sucks the dust off our pictures
I take no umbrella there, nor wear a hat
the rain is just me who comes sobbing
not wine but end to end water
I'm so brimming full my bottle's overflown
this falling over myself has crests like the sea
but I don't know which hand's throw is upon you? - Me?
When will I be palled to pal around?
But my bent branch was not immune
from the thrown ravages of stone
The one who found a moth flown on fire
is not me. You, the sun and me the earth
lived like a lone moth on fire, even though wings
paid in moths for my glowing desire, how can I
put a guard at the door of the house I have not?
The red of which branch was it that drove me mad?
How can I travel the apple
through a town that inherited zilch?
Not a bubble but a feather
through so much wind
that I have lost from a canary wing
I'm the dashed lines of a rain not inclined to fall out of your sight
I am gone from myself like the wave on a beach
As wave upon wave of the sea
I am falling upon myself
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