selected poems in English
Poems by Elyas Alavi
Translation from Persian/Farsi to English by Dr. Zuzanna Olsweska and Fatemeh Shams.
1
Conversation
I told my sister
Stay away from Kabul’s bazaars
Stay away from town squares
And the areas of high-ranking officials
She told me:
But here, Death is like dust in the air
Even if you close all the windows
Eventually, it gets into your room.
2
پیراهن سرخ به تو می آید
یا تو به پیراهن سرخ؟
شگوفه ها را باد باردار می کند
یا زیبایی تو؟
The red shirt suits you
or do you suit the red shirt?
What pollinates the blossoms?
the wind or your beauty?
3
محبوبم نه اینکه غمهایم بیشمار نیستند
و دستانم تنها نیست
اما عشق تو توانم می دهد
تا برخیزم
در آینه نگاه کنم
و به خیابان شوم.
My love
It’s not that my sorrows are not countless
And my hands are not alone
But your love gives me strength
To look in the mirror
And go for an outing.
4
به دریا که نگاه می کنی
دریا نیز به زیبایی تو نگاه می کند
نزدیکش نشو
می ترسم
به لحظه ای دستانش را باز کند
و تو را با خود ببرد.
When you look at the sea
She too is looking at your beauty
Don’t go close
I’m afraid
For the moment that she will open her arms
And take you away.
5
استرالیا استرالیا
در تو زاده نشدم
و ردّ ِ دستان پدرم بر درختانت نیست
اما تو وطن منی
و امنی
چون آغوش دور ِ مادرم.
Australia, Australia
I wasn’t born in you
And the hand prints of my father
Don’t show on your trees
But you are my homeland
And you are safe
Like my mother’s far embrace.
6
در پستوی هر خانه
کاش دروازه ای بود
به جنگل ِ سکوت
می شد برآمد گاهی
و یک پیاله چای ِ بی غم نوشید
و باز پس آمد
به این پیر ِ پتیاره،
زندگی.
If only in the back room of every house
there was a gateway to a forest of silence
where you could go from time to time
to drink a cup of sorrow-free tea
then come back
to this old shrew,
life.
7
Excuse
Be my excuse tonight
little bird!
If I were God
I would give silence to the night
sorrow to mankind
Moses to the Israelites
and you I would keep for myself
If I were God
I would set you up on Everest.
Be my excuse tonight
little bird
Perhaps I’ll be affected by a melody.
8
Your Beauty
You are sitting on a step
With your beauty
Your blue shoes
Your red jacket.
The cold?
Stares at your cheeks
Does not even blink
In the laziness of the afternoon
Your beauty is freshly brewed tea
For tired commuters
You have gone
Your beauty is still sitting on the step.
9
A Journey to Kandahar
We hugged each other tightly
and quickly let go.
With no hope of seeing each other we cried,
“Hope to see you soon.”
Mother laughed:
“Surely this isn’t a journey to Kandahar?”
And we, too, smiled bitter, bitter smiles.
Then
The train’s whistle blew, mournfully
A thousand yearning travellers waved from that side
A thousand yearning friends waved from this side.
We went home
And sought refuge in the dark rooms
Mother
Threw her arms around the porch
Took one look at the blossoms in the orchard
And loudly, loudly sobbed.
Note: “A journey to Kandahar” is a Persian idiom for a long, difficult journey. There is an additional level of
irony here because for Afghans, a journey could well be a journey to Kandahar, although this one is not.
10
Where is the homeland?
The homeland, a wooden table
At which we drank tea
And breathed a sigh of relief
just before the immigration police caught us.
where is the homeland?
An old boat
Adrift on the wild tresses of the Aegean Sea
“Pray that the sea calms down
The clouds calm down
The winds calm down!”
the old captain was saying
just before we danced among the waves.
The homeland
A detention camp in Torbat-e Jam
With high cement walls
With a high barbed wire fence
With long queues
Bread, a letter, shame.
The homeland
A distant café in London
Amidst fog and smoke and darkness
In which people with troubled shadows
And faded, lost eyes
Breathe bitter, bitter breaths
And down their cups of sorrow.
Safid Sang
Quetta
Istanbul
Nauru
The homeland perhaps is a hole in a cemetery in Adelaide
That waits hungrily for my thirsty lips
Where is the homeland?
11
Another kind
That night
As you lay down
I looked at you
And took my head in my hands.
I thought: how can you be sleeping in my room?
We had been apart twenty-one months.
A piece of moon drizzled in from the window
and I could see your body, tender as a ghazal.
Mozart, sitting a little further away on a plastic chair, played piano,
many others watched from cracks in the ceiling’s woods.
Watched you for the entire night
in all your beauty.
Morning was morning of departure.
You asked: will I come back?
I did not look at you.
“I do not know”- I said.
And sat in the taxi.
The taxi left,
I did not look back.
Our love was of another kind,
Gloomy, concealed.
12
She Had Beautiful Eyes
She had beautiful eyes
and the old men of the quarter all wished
that they had been born later
close your eyes
The world isn’t worth looking at
Nobody knows
With what crime the history of your eyes began
You were nine years old
When your brothers raped you
You had to be buried alive
Father
was a sacred monkey
The Bedouin mysteriously kidnapped you
And the taverns flourished and trade was brisk
A girl collecting stones in the folds of her skirt
Saw you for the last time in Jerusalem.
Years later the remains of your eyelids were discovered in the Lascaux caves
Hitler hunted for your eyes among Jewish women
When a bad air hung over Paris
A bad air over Paris
Sometimes to stay alive you have to smile
shout slogans, write poetry
And fearing the officials of the migration office
You came to Iran along with the Polish refugees
And Shamlu* wrote:
Behind the pupils of your eyes
which prisoner’s cry is there
That throws freedom onto swollen lips
Like a red rose?
A thousand years later
For a thousand years
In the mudbrick palaces of Kabul
You had to bury your eyes beneath a burqa
And that was too much for the Buddha…
He committed suicide.
If only you had known
the old men of the quarter all wished
that you had been born earlier.
* Note: Ahmad Shamlu was a major modern Persian poet.
I wish grapes would ripen
I wish grapes would ripen
The world become drunk
Streets stumble
Brush against each other,
Presidents and beggars.
I wish borders could become drunk
and Mohammad Ali could see his mother after 17 years
Ameneh could touch her child after 17 years
I wish the grapes would ripen
Amoo River would bring up his best-looking sons
Hendookosh Mountain would free her daughters.
For a moment
Guns would forget to tear apart
Knives, to slash open
Pens would write “fire” as “ceasefire”.
I wish mountains would reach each other
Sea would reach up to the sky
and steal her moon
Leopards and gazelles
Would go drinking together.
I hope the drunkenness will touch all things
The windows will break the walls
and you
While embracing your beloved tightly
Would remember me.
My darling
My faraway friend
Drink another cup with me
To all the vineyards
Overflowing with grapes.
الیاس علوی هستم. محمّد و رحمت الله نامهای دیگرم هست. کمی شعر میگویم؛ کمی خط خطی میکنم؛ و زیاد میخوابم. مهمترین چیزها در زندهگی آشفتهام، چای سبز با میخک مخصوص، مادرم و دوستانم هستند. 