Letter 2

Dear dream

still everyday

i kiss your eyes

then the corner of your lips

and talk to you of my shades.

I come to you like salt

with lust

and find you in blurred colours.

I come to you like silver

with truth

that pierced my skin as well.

I come to you as milk

innocently trying

to find a heartbeat in your core.

I come to you as moon

naked with my flaws

to be perfect in you.

I come to you as satin

just plain

choking million breaths

Dear dream

I come to you in a white shirt

wrinkled

and several sizes large.

Put me to sleep, now I am only white.

Win

From between
a handful of people
you watched

I watched you
through the tiny lens
and swayed drunk

Drunk in your pride
the yellow lights look green
like jealous green

The green stayed out
for we both wore black
and our insides were full

Our insides have pride
pride and pride
i wish some of it was just you and me

You could smile then
i could find several reasons
for a silly grin

death note

aah jo quatra na nikla tha, so toofan nikla

a sigh that never trickled came out a tornado

-mirza ghalib

This storm that has not passed,

tonight it will bring us close.

While saving ourselves,

we shall touch each other.

The desire that stayed beneath

we shall stay with it tonight.

We shall love it,
kiss it, and hold close.

Tomorrow when it clears

we will remember.
In a death notebook
we shall write each other's name.
The cause-lovestruck
..........................................................................

this new day
i will kill you
slit your stomach
retrieve
every bit of love
that i fed you
i could sprinkle
acid and fire
let it eat your skin
wipe every mole
every fingerprint
see you raw inside
i could split your head
while you sleep
i will tear dreams
make them colourblind
turn them black
i could suffocate
your lungs with
smoke and hate
let obedient maggots
feast on you
a million shards
of that big mirror
will marinate your veins
in every piece.
you will die
with my picture
in your eyes

Forough

Have sinned a rapturous sin,in a warm enflamed embrace,sinned in a pair of vindictive arms,arms violent and ablaze.

Gift

Speak out of the deep of night
out of the deep of darkness
and out of the deep of night I speak.

If you come to my house, friend
bring me a lamp and a window I can look through
at the crowd in the happy alley.


Translated by Ahmad Karimi Hakkkak

Window

When my faith was hanging
by the weak thread of justice
and in the whole city
the hearts of my lamps were
being torn to pieces,
when the childlike eyes of my love
were being blindfolded by law's black kerchief,
and fountains of blood were gushing forth
from the distressed temples of my desire,
when my life was no longer anything,
nothing but the tick tock of a wall clock,
I discovered that I must,
that I absolutely had to
love madly.

one window is enough for me,
one window to the moment of consciousness
and looking and silence.
the walnut sapling
Is now tall enough to explain
the meaning of the wall
to its young leaves.
ask the mirror
the name of your savior.
Is not the earth that trembles under your feet
lonelier than you?

......

i watch

through the glass

two wrinkled dolls

white and pink

lips open and close

memorizing lullabies

little girl and mother

a patient struggle

timeline and tricks

chocolate stains

spilled tea

tastes of future

a lone traveler

a metallic journal

windblown thoughts

eastern puzzles

promises of return

to another life

yesterday

a father and son

a hushed reunion song

ham sandwiches and

Darjeeling tea

a strained longing

for the unused time

everyday

someone new

in pairs

unaware of me

my hand prints on glass

waiting for us

again

the same corner

hungry afternoon

a pot of tea

for two

Link

The only link

between you and me now

are these lines that try to remember

all the first times and the last looks.

They stray into empty canteens

graveyards and fun fairs

rooftops and radio channels.

Through flickering video reels

of never ending quarrels with

unattended wishes and gifts

you stare at the screen

in your cheap sunglass moment.

My impressions change shape

on paper, like poems and brides

like careless ink stain doodles

and a story that you read at night.

Memory-

the only link

between you and me now

is everything.

Orange

At the corner of a week

when the year was turning around

and time was drawing a circle,

from behind a gulmohar tree

an orange cat sat watching

the twilight sky

that hung from a branch.

Unlike this silence

when everything is perfect

in a room full of voices and feet

behind the glass walls

i watch your fingers strain

my orange name

through tea leaves of time.

On the trees that flower

orange mornings

when the moon is red with sleep

a spider spins chalky doodles

of papery daydreams

of a cat that watched

you and me.

Theft

I am a little confused
why?
am i hunting for your photographs
again
like every time i will erase them
when
looking at them each time
I
slowly begin to weep and wonder
why
you look the happiest in them
if
only i were there with you
know
love wouldn't make me weep
yet
I search every picture
closely
eyes a little mole and your sweat
all
remind me of myself
yet
a dream lies like a pea
under
several covers of my story
my
story that i dream with you

a bit confused

tonight i am wearing your rust tee

tonight i need to smell your skin again

tell me you understand

that you know what i did was right

that you know that i havent slipped

my stomach is stiff with pain

i fought the wishes of a man who touched

my arms hurt when i bathed

to wipe off the dirt that came on his fingers

to change to a skin untouched

tonight i will pray again for myself

i may hurt myself with memories of a night

i may wash myself all over again

Sums

in that empty house
where i keep a few colored pots and bottles
some old maps and used tickets
i spend my evening watching the cobwebs
eating the leftovers and listening to my own footsteps
not that i am hungry
only in my sleep i get thirsty, but sleep doesn't come

i calculate
how much time has gone
when i collected these pots
how many evenings i have spent waiting for your call
for you to call me
i calculate how i lost directions
and began to write down the promises i would make
i begin to look for bunny rabbits in the clouds

i remember more
when it began to rain
i remember that evening watching a play
and then roles changed
i have begun to wonder why my feet hurt so much
why doesn't it rain when im walking
why is the food so cold

i sit and write
the mistakes i made
the stories i drew on empty sheets
the doors that i thought were on my wall
the keys that never would fit
i sit and wonder
how will i move so many pots and bottles
how will everything remain unbroken.