I am a cowherd; I don’t deny it, my goods Are those you see over there, I live happily By guiding among the fresh flowering grasses The sweetest company of my herd of cattle;
And there’s where they hear me, the love-¬struck trunks of trees, Into which the ancients have been transformed; Each and ev’ry one of them feels their own ruin; In the way that I too feel all of my worries.
You, oh trunks of great trees, (I say to them) at one time Considered yourselves to be so firm and secure Within the arms of a beautiful companion;
Console yourselves in me, oh solid, sturdy trunks; Because I, at one time, also once witnessed joy; And today I do weep at the falsehoods of Love.
My heart is but a moth on your candle like face, for it bears prints of faithfulness. Issue the edict of union, for it is besmeared with blood of grief.
Insignia of prosperity and edict of authority will be decora¬ ted in the name of Mir Ali Sher.
O God, I pray thee that enemy’s hand of power, should always stand turned down as has been in the past.
We present this work in honor of the 35th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Oktay Rıfat Horozcu Turkish 1914 – 1988
He died – he doesn’t know he died, his two hands lie by his side. They’ll carry him away, nor can he say, ‘I won’t go!’ He couldn’t even give thanks to the friends who bore his coffin.
Imperious despot, insolent in strife, Lover of ruin, enemy of life! You mock the anguish of an impotent land Whose people’s blood has stained your tyrant hand, And desecrate the magic of this earth, sowing your thorns, to bring despair to birth,
Patience! Let not the Spring delude you now, The morning light, the skies’ unclouded brow; Fear gathers in the broad horizon’s murk Where winds are rising, and deep thunders lurk; When the weak weeps, receive him not with scorn— Who soweth thorns, shall not his flesh be torn?
Wait! Where you thought to reap the lives of men, The flowers of hope, never to bloom again, Where you have soaked the furrows’ heart with blood, Drenched them with tears, until they overflowed, A gale of flame shall suddenly consume, A bloody torrent sweep you to your doom!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.
Spike Milligan Irish 1918 – 2002
On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Cows go Bong! and the monkeys all say BOO! There’s a Nong Nang Ning Where the trees go Ping! And the tea pots jibber jabber joo. On the Nong Ning Nang All the mice go Clang And you just can’t catch ’em when they do! So its Ning Nang Nong Cows go Bong! Nong Nang Ning Trees go ping Nong Ning Nang The mice go Clang What a noisy place to belong is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
O the delightful moment! Precious reward of my toils! Hell rejoices at thy curses, and expects a yet more frightful one from thee. Fool! wast thou not born free? Didst thou not bear in thy breast, like all who live in flesh, the instinct of good as well as of evil? Why didst thou transgress, with so much temerity, the bounds which had been prescribed to thee? Why didst thou endeavour to try thy strength with and against Him who is not to be reached? Did not God create you in such a manner, that you were as much elevated above the devils as above the beasts of the earth? Did he not grant you the perceptive faculty of good and evil? Were not your will and choice free? We wretches are without choice, without will; we are the slaves of evil and of imperious necessity; constrained and condemned to all eternity to wish nothing but evil, we are the instruments of revenge and punishment upon you. Ye are kings of the creation, free beings, masters of your destiny, which ye fix yourselves; masters of the future, which only depends upon your actions. It is on account of these prerogatives that we detest you, and rejoice when, by your follies, your impatience, and your crimes, you cease to be masters of yourselves. It is only in resignation, Faustus, that present or future happiness consists. Hadst thou remained what thou wast, and had not doubt, pride, vanity, and voluptuousness torn thee out of the happy and limited sphere for which thou wast born, thou mightst have followed an honourable employment, and have supported thy wife and children; and thy family, which is now sunk into the refuse of humanity, would have been blooming and prosperous; lamented by them, thou wouldst have died calmly on thy bed, and thy example would have guided thy posterity along the thorny path of life.
We present this work in honor of Dr. Ambdekar Jayanti.
Amrita Pritam Indian 1919 – 2005
There were two kingdoms only: the first of them threw out both him and me. The second we abandoned.
Under a bare sky I for a long time soaked in the rain of my body, he for a long time rotted in the rain of his.
Then like a poison he drank the fondness of the years. He held my hand with a trembling hand. “Come, let’s have a roof over our heads awhile. Look, further on ahead, there between truth and falsehood, a little empty space.”
Many great men dwelt in that city their faces shone with pure faith they worked together to promote religion and belief in Allah in overt and covert ways. Many were renowned for their virtue and generosity, and jealously preserved their respectability.
And when darkness fell, you would see them deep in prayer like chaste monks in the garden of Eden, that honorable place among the beautiful houris and boys.
Thanks to its tribunes, Kairouan was ranked among the world’s greatest. She outranked Egypt—that was fair enough— and left Baghdad well behind. When the city greatly prospered and attracted ambitious pioneers, as she became a place for all virtues, as well as safety and faith, time looked at her with envious eyes and kept many sorrows in store —till destiny had decided to unleash the unavoidable: troubles caused by various clans that belonged to the Banu Hilal. They massacred the Prophet’s nation and defied Allah’s punishment during Ramadan. They violated former treaties and those under Allah’s protection without keeping their word. They preferred to deceive their neighbors and take their women as prisoners of war. They tortured them in the cruelest manner and let rancor show through their hearts. The Muslims were divided and humiliated at the hands of these unfaithful: some were tortured or could do nothing, others were killed or put in prison. They called for help but no help came, and when they couldn’t yell or cry anymore, they gathered all their belongings and valuables, whether gold, silver, pearls, rare ornaments, or crockery. They went out on bare feet, begging Allah to protect them and overcome their fear. They fled with their infants, their children, their widows, and their spouses. They kept their virgins safe like gazelles lest their beauty drive the enemy mad— chaste beauties covered with shawls like moons shining on willow trees.
Sorrow will never disappear after such calamity just as the eternal cycle of night and day will never end. If Mount Thahlan had suffered the tenth of it, its highest peaks would have crumbled! All the cities of Iraq mourned her, as did the villages of Syria, Egypt, and Khorasan. Affliction and sorrow even reached the farthest countries of the Sind and Hind, and the land turned into a desert from al=Andalus to Halwan. I saw the stars rise but they did not shine, nor did sun or moon. I saw mountains deeply afflicted, as were all humans and jinns. Even Earth, because of this heavy burden, has now a definite lean. Will the nights, after they had separated us, bring us together again? Will they restore the land of Kairouan and bring the city back to life again after time had stolen its beauty and caused bloodshed among rival clans? It stands now as if it had never known riches nor ever been a sacred land. Time has duped its people and cut off the ties that used to bind them. Now they are scattered, like Saba’s peoples, and err about the lands.
Poets Corner 