I am neither discontented in the day
nor have nights of sleeplessness.
My life passes in great peace and comfort
for there is no place in my lap for sparking passions.
The caravan of life journeys on a settled road,
contrary or corresponding, the breeze brings no relief.
Clouds may burst with rain, but no more is the window flung open,
even at the blooming of a rose the fetters do not stir.
Snipping flowers, I fix them in a vase
as if it were a duty that must be observed.
I have nothing to do with moonlit nights—
what is there to obtain from the conversations of stars?
A sky, crowded or empty, has no meaning,
I now have no interest in useless things.
I have the books, but I cannot read them,
they look nice arranged in a certain order.
Where are they, those old pictures I had?
There were some letters, too, which I burned long ago.
II
The world has taught me new rules and practices now:
“It is proof of ill-breeding to laugh loudly,”
“How noisy it gets when birds twitter!”
“It is never good to go beyond limits in love,”
“Compromise, even of one’s principles, is accepted in this world.”
Whatever the decision, I never take it too emotionally,
in this lies my good, perhaps, and in this my welfare.
I have erased now from my heart the name that was engraved there
hearing which this heart sometimes forgot a beat.
There is no place for such things in my world anymore.
III
This may all be good, but, I don’t know why, still
I often think of something in my heart and become agitated
that now my look-alike, my fondly nurtured daughter,
is gathering the heritage of all my rejected, useless thinking
and is filling up her lap.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
IFTIKHAR ARIF
Dialogue
“Who is it behind the wind’s curtain who plays with the candle’s flame?
There must be someone.
Who confers the robe of lineage and plays with the flow of time?
There must be someone.
Who calls a veil the mystery of truth’s light and plays with light beams?
There must be someone.”
“There is no one—
no one anywhere.
These are illusions, fantasies of the deluded that seek the fealty of every questioner
and soon strangle the questioner from within.”
“Then who is it that stamps the sun on the tablet of moving waters and tosses up clouds?
Who stretches the clouds across seas and molds a pearl in the womb of an oyster shell?
Who is the planter of possibility, of fire in stone, color in fire, light in color?
Who inhabits dust with sound, sound with word, and word with the provisions of life?
No, someone is there—
somewhere someone there is.
Someone there must be.”
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
It Will Take a Few More Days
It will take a few days
to forget the destruction of a city like the heart.
It will take a few more days
to forget all the chaff and straw
all the cypresses and firs of this colorful world.
On the shore of exhausted dreams
somewhere a small house of hope
was almost complete.
It will take a few more days to forget that house.
But just how many days are left?
One day, on the heart’s waiting tablet
suddenly
night will descend
and fulfill every dream that hides
in the treasure house of my lightless eyes—
will turn me, too, into a dream
such a dream, the desolate lap of which
has no blessing, no bright day.
It will take a few more days.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
Orientation
On the shore of the Euphrates
or some other river’s side
all hordes are the same
all daggers are the same.
Light trampled under horses’ hooves
light spreading from the river to fields of slaughter
light terrified in burned-down field tents—
all sights are the same.
After each such scene a silence falls
this silence is the note of complaint, the dialect of protest.
This is not a recent story, it is an ancient tale
the complexion of endurance in each telling is the same.
On the shore of the Euphrates
or another river’s side
all hordes are the same.
The Last Man’s Victory Song
The Shah’s fellows are satisfied that desecrated heads and chopped-off arms
hang from the city’s walls.
There is peace everywhere,
peace and silence.
The anguished cries sacrificed to the patrols,
the merchandise of patience offered up to the desolation of prayer,
the hope of recompense yielded to uncertainty of reward—
there is neither trust in the word nor respect for blood.
Peace and silence.
The Shah’s fellows are satisfied that desecrated heads and chopped arms
hang from the city’s ramparts and there is peace everywhere.
The river of power is planked with the bodies of rebels,
whatever spoils could be seized have been shared,
ropes of the canopy of speech and language have been cut—
it is such a state, even the desire for safety is madness.
Peace and silence.
The Shah’s fellows are satisfied that desecrated heads and chopped-off arms
hang from the city’s walls,
and there is peace everywhere.
Peace and silence.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
Twelfth Man
In pleasant weather
crowds of spectators
come to applaud
their teams,
everyone cheers their
favorite players.
Apart and alone, I
hoot
the twelfth man.
What a strange player
is the twelfth man!
The game goes on,
the din and clamor persist,
applause continues,
and he, apart from everyone,
awaits
such a time,
such a moment,
when some mishap occurs
and he comes out to play
in the midst of clapping.
A word of praise,
a cry of appreciation,
may be raised for him—
along with all the other players,
he too may gain stature.
But this seldom happens.
Even so, people say
that the player’s relationship
to the game
is a lifelong affair.
This lifelong relationship
can also come to an end,
with the final whistle
the heart that sinks
can break as well.
You, too, Iftikhar Arif,
are the twelfth man,
waiting
for such a moment,
such a time,
when an accident happens,
when a mishap occurs.
You, too, Iftikhar Arif,
will sink,
you, too, will founder.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
AMJAD ISLAM AMJAD
Look, Like My Eyes!
You are at an age
when to pluck stars and bring them from the sky
seems truly possible.
Every flourishing part of the city
appears like your backyard,
it seems as if every day
every sight
seeks your permission to determine its shape—
what you wish, happens; what you think becomes possible.
But, heedless girl, you who wander entranced in the pouring rain of your unripe years
this cloud that today stops over your roof to speak to you
is an apparition.
In every season before and after you
on every rooftop, in the same manner
it goes about dispensing its deceptions.
From the morning of creation to the night of eternity, just one play and just one scene,
are rehearsed for the eye.
Sweet girl, who sleeps and wakes on the bed of dreams,
may your dreams live.
But keep in mind that all the sights of this dream-house of life
are prisoners of time, which, in its flow
carries them along and spurs them on.
The watching eyes are left behind.
Look…like…my eyes!
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
Then Come, O Season of Mourning
Then come, O season of mourning—this time too, I again
take you by your finger and bring you home.
Everything there is still the same, nothing has changed.
Your room is just like it was, the way you
saw it, left it.
On the nightstand by your bed, even today
lies that coffee mug
on whose dry and broken rim
flecks of the froth of doubt and desire are still evident,
the pen, on whose nib the ink of sleepless night flakes
like the thin crust formed on dry lips.
There are those papers
which remain forever wet with some unwept tears.
Your sandals have been kept as well
to whose useless soles cling all those dreams
that, despite being so badly battered, still draw breath.
Your clothes
which came washed in sorrow’s rains
still hang in my closets.
The damp towel of reassurances
and the half-dissolved soap of choking sobs
lie in the glistening washbasin.
To this day both the hot and cold faucets
continue to flow, which you that day
in some hurry left running.
The clock hanging on the wall beside the door
even now, as always
is slow by half a minute—
the date stuck on the calendar has not blinked an eye.
And suspended next to it
that one picture in which she
sits beside me with her head on my shoulder.
A butterfly close to my neck and her hair
flutters happily about.
Such a magic spell is cast
that it feels as if the heart is stopping, the breeze still blows.
But, O season of mourning
that very moment
who knows from which direction you came by
and passed between us—
passed between us in such a way
as a boundary separates opposing paths
on every side of which rises only the dust of separations.
A thin coat of that dust
perhaps you will see on the doorbell.
Perhaps some imperfection, too, you will notice in the picture.
The longing eyes that always used to smile,
you will, perhaps, now find the corners of those eyes a little wet.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
You Are in Love with Me
What is this childishness that nature has preserved
in love’s disposition—
that however old, however strong it is,
it continues to need fresh affirmation?
You flourish in the heart to the furthest limit of certainty
distill from the eyes, glitter in the blood
and create a thousand endearing haloes of light.
But still you need the express words—
for love demands evidence of its existence
as a child who plants a seed in the evening
and rises again and again in the night
to see how much it has grown.
Love’s disposition has this strange liking
for repetition
that it never tires of hearing words of reassurance.
In the time of parting or the moment of conjunction
it has but one passion—
say you love me,
say you love me.
You are in love with me.
Far deeper than oceans, brighter than stars
firm as mountains, enduring as the winds
all lovely sights from earth to sky
are tropes of love, are metaphors of devotion—
our own.
For us these moonlit nights adorn themselves
the golden day emerges—
wherever love proceeds, the world goes with it.
There is such unrest in the lands of love
it keeps lovers perpetually uneasy—
like scent in flower, like quicksilver on the palm
like the evening star
lovers’ dawn resides in night.
In the small branches of doubt love’s nest is built
harboring fears of parting even in the midst of union.
When pilgrims of love come to the end of their journey
picking up splinters of their exhaustion
wrapped in ajraks of their devotion
they pause at the last boundary of time.
Then someone, holding on
to the sinking thread of breath
softly says:
“This is truth, isn’t it!
Our lives were allotted to each other.
This mist spread near and far from our eyes,
this is affection.
You were in love with me—
you were in love with me!”
In love’s disposition
what is this childishness that nature has preserved?
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
SARMAD SEHBAI
Poem for Those Affected by Disaster
They will publish the picture of your father’s
disfigured face in the newspaper.
Hugging your daughters’ torn garments,
they will listen to the account of your life-and-death sorrows
as if it was a folktale.
A lot of them will nod their heads in sympathy.
But who will share your grief?
Who will go out looking for you?
Children in ill-fated lanes
go about picking up pieces of dry bread—they will go on doing so.
Women in green fields
pick the crops—they will go on doing so,
continue weaving gowns and robes from new seasons.
But who will cover your naked body?
Who will go out looking for you?
For you, the rulers
will collect donations from country after country.
Tickets will be sold
for exhibits of posters of your dead body.
God-fearing citizens will buy gifts of prayers.
You will be publicly buried
amid gold-robed shouts.
But no one will die your death.
Tell me, who will go out?
Who will go out looking for you?
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
Strange Desires
I have strange desires
Sometimes the desire to tuck the moon into my pocket
and wander about in dark lanes
Sometimes, in the blast of heavy rains
the desire to hold your body
Sometimes, while walking,
suddenly the desire for separation
Sometimes the wish to stay up all night
sometimes to sleep late into the morning
sometimes secretly to watch
girls bathing
or to go back to college in old age
Sometimes a burning desire to renounce the world
sometimes the desire to battle the whole world
Strange desires
One day I will be terror-stricken by the mysterious shadows of these desires
You will see, one day, just like this I will die
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
FAHMIDA RIAZ
Aqleema
Aqleema,
born of the mother
of Abel and Cain,
born of the same mother
but different,
between her thighs,
in the fullness of her breasts,
and inside her belly,
and in her womb.
Why is the fate of them all the sacrifice of a fatted calf?
She, the prisoner of her own body,
in the fierce sun
stands atop a burning rock.
Look carefully at the imprint in the stone.
Above the slender thighs,
the intricate womb,
Aqleema has a head, too.
Allah, speak sometimes to Aqleema too,
ask something!
Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed
The Chador and the Walled Homestead
My Lord, what shall I do with this black chador?
Why do you (many thanks, though) bestow it upon me?
I am not in mourning that I should wear it
to show my sorrow and grief to the world,
nor am I stricken with disease that I should drown myself in the darkness of its folds,
not a sinner or a felon
that I should be forced to mark my forehead with its black ink—