The poet composes salutations to your beauty!
16
Ghazal
Colour, the Name of Your Dress
Colour: the name of your dress
perfume: the name of your hair flowing in the wind
The season of the flowers is the name of
your appearance on the balcony
Friends, say something about those eyes and lips
Without which the subject of the garden
nor the name of the wine-house can gain colour
The scent of flowers again fills my sight
and lamps begin to shine in the heart
Once again the imagination brings up the notion
of visiting her assembly
17
Ghazal
Your Forgotten Sorrows Wander Back into the Heart
Your forgotten sorrows wander back into the heart
Like the long-exiled idols tiptoeing into the Ka’aba
The stars brighten up one by one
Are those your feet moving towards this, my home?
Speed up the wine’s dance! Enhance the music’s pitch!
Look, ambassadors from the Ka’aba are on their way to the wine-house!
It’s I who doesn’t have the patience to bear her favour’s gratuity
Actually, she’s always inclined to kindness whenever she visits
Hey, let someone plead with disunion’s night not to pass too fast
My heart aches not much right now, nor is her memory so importunate
18
The Heart’s Wine Glass, Once Broken, Can’t Be Repaired
Pearl, bottle of wine, wine glass or pearl in an earring
Once broken, it stays broken
When have tears been able to join it together?
What’s broken is gone, forever
Needlessly you pick up the shards
And gather them in the hem of your dress
There’s none to bring the broken glass back to wholeness
On whom do you pin your hopes?
It’s among those broken pieces perhaps
That there is the wine glass of the heart in which
The fairy of love’s sorrow would pour itself
With a hundred cruel, coquettish airs
And then one day the world seized that wine glass
from you and smashed it into pieces
Spilt the wine into the dust and
Broke the kingly wings of the guest
These colourful particles belong perhaps
To those beautiful, crystalline dreams
Which embellished and enhanced
your private being in the drunken prime of youth
Deprivation, drudgery at work, hunger and grief
Dashed against those dreams
The four-pronged attack was merciless
What could the fragile structures of glass do?
Or perhaps among those slivers of glass somewhere
Is hidden the pearl of your honour
That which made even the tallest of them
Envy you when you were at your humblest
The treasure which was madly sought after
By many and merchant and robber
This is Thief City; here the destitute
Lose their name to save their life
Pearl, bottle of wine, wine glass or pearl in an earring
Fetch good prices only when whole
If in little slivers as they now are
They just stab and make you shed tears of blood
Needlessly you pick up the shards
And gather them in the hem of your dress
There’s none to bring the broken glass back to wholeness
On whom do you pin your hopes?
You may darn the collar of memories
But that won’t sustain the heart
Undoing a seam, sewing another
Is that the way a life can be lived?
In the workshop of life where
The wine glass and the bottle are cast
You can find a substitute for every thing
And can fill your every need
The hands that are stretched are successful
The eye that looked up, fortunate
There’s no end to the riches here
However many highwaymen may lie in ambush
Can the marauding, plundering life ever
Empty the stores and warehouses?
There are mountains upon mountains of diamonds here
And oceans upon oceans of pearls
There are some who hide this wealth
Behind walls and curtains
Putting on the auctioneer’s block
Every ocean, every mountain
But there are some who fight
And rip off the curtains
And place obstacles in the path of
Life’s cut-purses
The two parties fight fierce battles, forever
In every neighbourhood, every town
In the heart of every home
On the forehead of every busy road
One smears blackness everywhere
The other lights lamps
One sets fire to things
The other quenches the fire
All wine glasses, bottles, rubies and pearls
are placed as bets in this game
Arise! For all the empty hands
are summoned to battle!
19
Ghazal
Let There Be Some Clouds, Let There Be Some Wine
Let there be some clouds, let there be some wine
After this let there be whatever punishment there may be
Let the moon come down from the decanter’s balcony
And the sun shine in the hand of the cup-bearer
Let every vein in the body light up like fire
Let the beloved appear unveiled once again
On every page of life the heart saw inscribed
Chapters of your love and fidelity
I was taking count of life’s sorrows today
Your memories flooded my mind uncountably
The sovereignty of love’s sorrows never went away
Though the heart witnessed revolutions every day!
The pillars and arches of the rival’s assembly
burst into flame
Whenever the homeless like us happened to arrive there
My silence echoed everywhere so
As if every direction were in response
Every road, every path was the destination, Faiz
We arrived successful wherever we reached
20
An Evening in the Prison House
The night descending step by step
From the zigzag patterns
Of the evening stars
The gentle breeze passes softly
As if someone uttering words of love
The homeless trees of the courtyard of the prisonhouse
Bending, are absorbed in making floral patterns
On the skyscape
On the balcony’s shoulder gleams
The beauteous hand of the gentle moonlight
The luminance of the stars has dissolved into the earth
And the indigo of the sky has dissolved into fluorescence
Bluish shadows flow in green corners
Like the surge of the wave of pain
Of disunion flowing into the heart
The mind tells the heart, again and again
How beautiful is life at this moment!
Those who decoct the poison of tyranny
Can never flourish, today nor tomorrow
So what if they have already
Extinguished the lights in the hall
Of union with the beloved?
I dare them to put out the moon!
21
A Morning in the Prison House
A bit of the night still remained when the moon came to my bedside
And said, ‘Awake, morning is
here.
Awake, for the wine of sleep that was your share is shrunk
to the bottom of the wine cup.’
Bidding farewell to the beloved’s image, I opened my eyes
And looked at the sheet of the night’s dark, still water
Whirlpools of silver began to dance everywhere
And star lamps falling from the hands of the moon
Drowning, floating, wilting and blooming
Night and morning clung in a long embrace
In the prison’s courtyard
the golden aspects of friends and comrades
Emerged glistening from the dark surface, slowly
The dew of slumber had washed away
From their faces signs of sorrow for the homeland
And grief of distance from beauty’s face
A gong sounded in the distance
Bored legs began doing their rounds
The prison guards, pale, afflicted by hunger
Angry, loud laments of the prison inmates
Roam around, arm in arm with the guards
The winds laden with the pleasure of sleep awakened
The poison-saturated cries of the prison house awakened
Far away somewhere a door opened, another
slammed shut
Far away somewhere a chain rattled, importunate, and wept
Far away somewhere a dagger thrust deep into a padlock’s heart
A window began to strike its head violently over and over again
As if life’s enemies were awoken from sleep
Ponderous djinns cast in iron and stone
In whose clutches complain night and day
The tender fairies of my useless days and nights
Imprisoned, they await the arrival of their royal firstborn
Whose quiver is full of arrows of incandescent hope
(Unfinished)
22
Remembrance
O life of the world! In the desert of loneliness throb
The shadows of your voice, the mirage of your lips
In the desert of loneliness
Buried under the dust and brambles of separation
flower the lilies and roses of your side
From somewhere close by
the warmth of your breath rises in the air
Smouldering in its own fragrance, softly, slowly
Far away, shining brightly on the horizon
Falls drop by drop the dew of your heart-warming glance
How lovingly, at this moment, O life of the world
Has your memory placed its hand on the face of my heart!
It seems to me, though it’s a morning of disunion
The day of separateness is over
and the night of union has come
POEMS SELECTED FROM
Zindaan Nama
23
Meeting
(1)
This night is the tree of a pain
That is greater than you or me
Greater than us, for in its branches
Rows upon rows of torch-bearing stars
Have been surrounded and lost their light
A thousand moons, in its shade
Have wept away their moonlight
This night is the tree of a pain
That is greater than you or me
Yet it’s from the tree of this night
that the yellow leaves of these few moments
Have fallen, and caught in your tresses
They have burst into colour
It’s from the dew of this very night
that these few drops of silence
have fallen on your forehead
And have become a wreath of diamonds
(2)
This night is very dark, but
In this darkness shines out
That stream of blood which is my voice
It is in this shade that shines bright
The golden flow which is your gaze
The grief that smoulders at the present time
In the garden of your arms
(This grief which is the fruit of this night)
Were it to burn some more in the flame
of our burning sighs
would actually become a glowing ember
Each and every arrow that has been shot into the liver
From the bow of every black branch
We plucked out, we made each one
Into an axe
(3)
It is not in the heavens that the morning
Of the anguished and the grief-stricken will dawn
The bright face of morning will be seen
Right here, where we stand
It’s here that the sparks blossomed from pain
Have bloomed crimson into a dawn
It’s here that the weapons of murderous sorrows
Have turned into rows upon rows
Of garlands of fiery sunshine
The sorrow that was imparted by this night
The same sorrow has been the conviction for the morning
Conviction, which is of compassion more than sorrow
Morning, which is of greatness more than night
Ghazal
When Does the Memory of You Leave My Side?
When does the memory of you leave my side?
when do I not have your hand in mine?
A hundred thanks that in our nights
are not included any more the nights of separation
If things are difficult there can’t we even sell off our hearts
give up our lives?
O keepers of hearts! Have things come to such a pass
in the beloved’s quarters?
The attitude that you bear to the slaughter
is remembered after you
Who cares for this life?
After all, it is only a coming and going
The field of faithfulness is not someone’s royal court
where your pedigree is questioned
Lover is not a name given to a person
nor is love a caste
If the wager is to be set for love
stake what you will fearlessly
If you were to win, how wonderful
losing is not so bad either
25
O City of Lights!
The insipid, pale noon sun dries up
sward by sward
The venom of loneliness is licking away at the walls
As far as the farthest horizon it keeps advancing
diminishing, rising, falling, like a fog
The turgid wave of colourless, uninteresting exertions and pains
And behind that fog there’s the city of lights
O city of lights!
Who can tell which way lies the road to your lights?
For on all sides stands the dark city wall of disunion
Everywhere, the exhausted forces of love lie recumbent
My heart is troubled today
O city of lights!
I fear the flood of desire might be repulsed in a surprise attack by night—
May the beloveds, the Lailahs that dwell there be ever safe!
Let someone go tell them:
Tonight, when you light up the lamps
Turn the wicks up as far as they can go
26
Ghazal
Some Is Supplied to the Secret Assemblies
Some is supplied to the secret assemblies of the censors
and some is delivered to the preacher’s house
Very little of what should be ours—the rightful share of the true drinkers—
falls into our wine cups
Did you ever see stone-hearts turn to water
by submitting words of desire, O heart of mine?
However much one may cultivate submission
did a tyrant ever change his ways?
It’s the land of the unjust, no remedy here, no plaint possible
The suppliant�
��s cry, if it’s fool enough to rise
Breaks its head at the door
from door to door
Yes, I know, I too fear for my life
But what can one do?
Every road that leads to where I want to go
passes through the execution ground
Now the wayfarer to the beloved’s street should be
highwayman too if he wishes to get there
Enemy-rivals don’t budge from their station of the watch
and the night, it keeps passing steadily
Confined to the cage, we aren’t all that alone, really
The morning breeze of home, every day
Arrives scented with memories and departs bright with tears
27
A Lover to a Beloved
This memory lane which you’ve been treading
in this manner for a long time now
Will come to an end should you go a few more steps
There’s a bend there, that of the wilderness of forgetting
Beyond it, there’s neither someone called I
Nor someone called you
Eyes watch with baited breath for who knows when
You’d return, or pass, or turn your head to look
Although the eyes are aware, all this is nought but illusion
Yet if ever somewhere the eyes held you in embrace
Another road would immediately foliate there
On which there’ll again be, constantly in front of us
The journey of the caressing arm, the tresses’ shade
That other thing is also false: the heart knows