When night stirred at sea
And the fire brought a crowd in,
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.
Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went —
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly.
And O she was the Sunday
In every week.
We present this work in honor of the 130th anniversary of the poet’s death.
In the darkness and still of a mysterious night
I see a fond and welcoming spark,
From the chorus of spheres, familiar eyes
Shine upon a grave forgotten in the steppe.
The grass has faded, the desert is grim,
A lonely tomb dreams an orphan’s dream,
And only in the sky, like an eternal idea,
The stars’ golden eyelashes sparkle.
And I dream you’ve risen from the dead,
Unchanged since you departed the earth,
And I dream a dream: we both are young,
And you’ve looked at me as you did back then.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 50th birthday.
I wear your perfume on my skin
Don’t be unkind
Like wild flowers shy under the sun
Don’t seek the truth,
I tell you none exists
Everything has an expiration date
Love, life, identity, even abnormality.
We are travelers,
Some of us just leave the suitcase at home
So that our hands won’t suffer the weight of our guilt.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 45th birthday.
Facing the airport, all that’s now left in my grasp
is a crumpled land
that fits in the palm of my hand.
Facing wavering sunbeams—
a sun that is angry and mute.
All the way from the salt sands of Dasht-e Lut,
it came, the dream
that forced my fingers’ shift,
that set my teeth on edge.
A muted breeze,
whirlwind spun from sand dunes
all the way, even through the back alley.
Are you pasting together the cut-up fragments of my face to make me laugh?
No longer than the palm of the hand, a short leap,
exactly the length you had predicted.
A huge grave in which to lay the longest night of the year to sleep.
Sleep has quit our eyelids for other pastures,
has dropped its anchor at the shores of garden ponds,
has lost the chapped flaking of its lips,
poor thing.
Are you pasting together the cut-up fragments of my face to make me laugh?
With scissors – snip, snip – they are severing something.
The alphabet shavings strewn on the ground,
are they the letters that spell our family name?
With every zig-zag,
you cage my mother’s breath,
her footprints fading
in the shifting sands.
Are you pasting together the cut-up fragments of my face to make me laugh?
No.
A strange land-shape forms.
I will not return.
I left behind a shoe, one of a pair,
for you to put on and follow after me.
We present this work in honor of Moroccan Independence Day.
A people undone.
Your bread shreds itself ceremonially on mounds of reminiscence under the rain
musical prattle.
Wait and see a little and-you’ll-see-golden-
eggs-in-your-cottage-and-you’ll-see-
the-milky-diamonds-of-figs-in-your-stream-
of-honey-in-your -well-virgins-in-your-
harem-you-will-speak-with-birds-with-
reptiles-with-raptors-wait-and-see-your-
hovel-become-a-villa-with-a-car-
and-daily-driver-and-TV-and-heated-
pool-and-telephone-and-telex-in-
permanent-touch-with-every-
dream-and-illusion.
Just wait and see.
We present this work in honor of the 30th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet
paper and pen
neither care nor profit
whether we write or not
but as your body moves
under my hands
charged and waiting
we cut the leash
you create me against your thighs
hilly with images
moving through our word countries
my body
writes into your flesh
the poem
you make of me.
Touching you I catch midnight
as moon fires set in my throat
I love you flesh into blossom
I made you
and take you made
into me.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.
The street lights are on in a distance
As if numerous stars show.
The bright stars loom in the above
As if numerous street lights glow.
I believe there must be a beautiful market street
In that aerial heaven with cloud clear.
The goods displayed on that street
Must be rarities which we don’t have here.
You see, that shallow Milky Way
Must be not very wide.
The cowherd and weaving lady separated by it
Must be able to visit each other on a ride.
I believe at this moment along that street
Sauntering there must be they.
If you doubt, please look at that shooting star,
Which may be the lantern they are taking on their way.
I had seen coconut trees and tamarinds
and mangos
the white sails drying in the sun
the smoke of breakfast across the sky
at dawn
and fish jumping in the net
and a girl in red
who would go down to the shore and come up with a jug
and pass behind a grove
and appear and disappear
and for a long time
I could not sail without that image
of the girl in red
and the coconut trees and tamarinds and mangos
that seemed to live only
because she lived
and the white sails were white only
when she lay down
in her red dress and the smoke was blue
and the fish and the reflection of the fish
were happy
and for a long time I wanted to write a poem
about that girl in red
and couldn’t find the way to describe
the strange things that fascinated me
and when I told my friends they laughed
but when I sailed away and returned
I always passed the island of the girl in red
until one day I entered the bay of her island
and cast anchor and leaped to land
and now I write these lines and throw them into the waves in a bottle
because this is my story
because I am gazing at coconut trees and tamarinds
and mangos
the white sails drying in the sun
and the smoke of breakfast across the sky
and time passes
and we wait and wait
and we grunt
and she does not come with ears of corn
the girl in red.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 80th birthday.
Oh Pakistan, celestial land!
Give us your heart!
And take our heart in return!
Once we shared the same sky!
Sky with the same sun!
We shared the same pain like twins on the battlefield
to remove the dust.
Now our flesh is ripped apart
By that meandering barbed-wire fence!
Oh they have drawn that
dividing line on a flimsy paper!
That line of agony and tears
Can anyone draw that line
In our raw flesh, inside our heart?
Friends! Be happy where you
are… now!
Memory never fades, poets say
distance only purifies it…
We sat under the same tree,
Enjoyed the fragrance of the
same flower
Till that time
like a dagger
cut those rivers into
several pieces! Destroyed the
mountains and flower gardens where
we had played!
And those banks
where we had counted those
fig-coloured waves!
Like the honey laden
lips of the damsels!
We wore the same clothes
woven by our mothers!
We shivered in winter and in summer our
sweat slid down our backs
We enjoyed the same wine
from the poems of Ghalib
Momin and Zauk
We cried together in pain!
Under the blood stained sky.
Oh Pakistan! Celestial land
Give us your heart
And take our heart in return!
No we need not speak now
Only silence speaks in a clear voice.
Oh Pakistan! Silence can bring
the fragrance of a mother’s soul
Silence can reveal.
The heavenly beauty of Sutlej,
Chenab, and the Red River
Of the East!
Silence can be loud like
a million voices
Oh Pakistan! Celestial land!
Our eyes misted by the
Smoke of blossoming gun powder!
Our soul wounded by the unknown fires!
May these eyes now witness the
new Sunrise
On the banks of Sutlej,
Chenab, and in the Red
River of the East!
Oh Pakistan, celestial land!
Give us your heart!
And take our heart in return
We present this work in honor of the 160th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Unhappy who seeks in appearance
bliss and ephemeral praise,
and changes his mind with the change
of the versatile public conscience!
The present is your only providence;
yields to the blowing of the wind that throws him
to good without faith and evil without hope;
that in erring with the world is his science.
And happy the independent male
who, free from worldly bondage,
aspires, between pain and sorrow,
to the eternal truth, not to the present one,
knowing that the world and its truths
they are only vanity of vanities!
Poets Corner 