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Ahmad Shamlou
Poems
Iran
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The Dark Song
Translated to English by Fanous Bahadrvand
Upon the Plum beaus back ground
of morning
the rider
is standing silent
and perturbs
his horses long mane in the wind.
O' God O' God
riders shouldn't be standing
The time that
Happening is warned
beside the burned hedge
The girl
is standing silent
and her thin skirt
is shaking in the wind.
The Mirror Garden
Translated to English by Manavaz Alexadrian
A lamp in my hand, another in front of me,
I march against darkness.
The cradles of exhaustion
Have stopped rocking,
Tired of the traffic,
And the sun, deep from inside,
Illuminates
The constellations that have turned into ashes.
The revolting roar of the thunder
When the hail
Gets impregnated
Within the uneasy womb of the cloud
And the silent pain of the vine tree
When the unripe little grape
Is blossoms at the end of the long twisted branch,
My cry was but to escape from pain,
Because I sought the sun with a hopeless prayer in the most horrible night.
You have descended from suns, from the breaking twilights,
You have descended from the mirrors and the silks.
In a void atmosphere where neither God nor fire exited,
I'd sought your gaze and confidence with a hopeless prayer.
A serious affair,
Between two deaths
Within the void of two solitude
(Such is your gaze and confidence!).
Your joy is ruthless, yet magnanimous;
In my empty hands your breath strikes as a song and greenness.
I shall rise!
With a lamp in my hand,
A lamp in my heart,
I scrub the rust off my soul.
I will set a mirror in front of your mirror
To build an eternity
Out of you.
Out of you.
Elegy on Forugh's Death
Translated to English by Manavaz Alexadrian
In search of you
I weep at the threshold of the mountain,
At the margin of the sea and the foliage.
In search of you,
I weep at the passage of winds,
At the crossroads of seasons,
In the cracked casement of a window
Which builds an old frame
Out of a cloudy sky.
Awaiting your image
How long,
How long this empty notebook
Will be flipped through?
To accept the flow of the wind
And to accept love,
Which is the sister of death -
And eternity
Which has
Imparted its mystery to you.
Then you became a treasure.
Imperative and greed provoking
A treasure of that sort
That has made ownership of the earth and towns,
The way they are,
So pleasant!
Your name is like dawn passing over the brow of the sky
- May your name be blessed! -
And we are still
Rehearsing
The night and the day
And the present moment.
Nocturnal
Translated to English by Manavaz Alexadrian
The night is dark,
The night is awake,
The night is abundant,
It is the most beautiful night for dying.
Tell the sky to give me a dagger made of the brilliant of its stars.
The night, all the night,
Has remained sleepless
From the epic of the quarrelsome sea.
An empty sea,
A poor sea...
The old jungle breathed heavily and shook itself
And a bird which had flown from the sandy shore
Perched clamorously in the darksome swamp.
The darksome swamp,
Rose lightly from sleep
And with the useless and stagnant lullaby of the sea
Again
Sank into a dreamless sleep...
The jungle is stranger to wailing and epic,
And covers
The wound of the ax
With the green enamel of the moss.
The epic of the sea
Is from fear of stagnation and silence.
The night is dark,
The night is sick,
It is awake from the fearful roar of the sea;
The night is pregnant with shadows and roar of the abundant sea,
It is the most beautiful night to love.
With your eyes,
I
No more need the brilliant of the stars.
Tell
The sky.
A Small Song
Translated to English by Manavaz Alexadrian
- Where are you?
In the boundless expanse of this world
where are you?
- I am standing at the farthest point in the world,
beside you.
- Where are you?
in the filthy expanse of this world
where are you?
- I am standing at the purist peak in the world,
on the green briny bank of this big river which is singing
for you.
Resurrection
Translated to English by Manavaz Alexadrian
I was the embodiment of all the dead:
The corpse of birds which were singing
And are now silent,
The corpse of the most beautiful animals
On earth and in water,
The corpse of
Bad and good people,
I was there
In the tuneless past,
I had no secret,
Neither smile
Nor regret.
With kindness
You saw me
In my dream
And I woke with you.
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