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Azita Ghahreman
Translated to english from persian by Omid Ghahreman "I Had No Home"
Earth became the game-board With crossroads of lines A triangle that has leaning peaks to fall On this dead horse Whichever path you took I was lost I had no home A suitcase with high porticoes Four gowns and a tree A root to wind in polar day A sky with tight zippers
Folding cities Cloudy charm A reminiscence of the girlish black eyebrow In heavy rain
Then you kneeled down to see Moon a hole in the sky So wherever it's possible to be lost She would change the poems route And turn the dream back to front
It was only your eye That wrote the death lingering Or the beast would have eaten my hand And April moles Wouldn't take the wound seriously Eight years of age Have grown thin Like a plum wicker And loneliness has a small beak
Whichever way you came form I had returned Sometimes love was dragging me Sometimes I was dragging love with my claws into her
And this room departs With a lunatic behind the windowpanes To broaden the laughter
Summer with rotten white cover I've sold the Nietzsche The antique porringer and the sugar bowl And the violet dress in the wardrobe Had been worn-out.
I had no home And up through the seam of this running The needle was jumping
You were not the cloud's tail And wind will not follow the lozenges I won't be found lower than God's hollow More radiant than the dove That I gave birth to And flew away from me Black words lift The woman's wild mouth
A mountain of fallen borders A white tooth in the voice of grass Did the wind's course Reach your home Amidst these lines?
"The Boat That Brought Me"
Behind the face that resembles yours Old names disappear Blood has crumpled snap-shots And the copper bird's wind Seems to have worn my desert Over my pull-over.
I'm not naked Sometimes words are lost in my coughing And so is the frothy moon In the glass
This journey always spinned round my tongue And my veins hid nothing from death To draw calligraphic footsteps Summer had confessed me This crumpled green fuzz on fingers of ice Wave was beautifully ebbing and flowing like love
Sometimes I miss the boat That brought me here And here before winter's eyelids My witnesses are this time-worn sky And a suitcase that hides my blue profile.
"Sunday Becomes Lost Here"
Wind reveals the environs of running more lucidly Light has secret balconies
Sunday becomes lost here From the dress that has no choice to fly From among all those levels and lines and icons Only the thin eyebrows Wrote a short example Room's vigilance walks at nights
Behind the rustling of the papers I'm stupefied like a woman Who perpetually takes the little girl from water And she slips back in again You'll believe it as soon as you blink
“Language” The sea crossed over sleep The wind, over us A name without a face was calling me The rain was rewriting the old words There was no hand to catch me when I fell A fear whose shadow you’d cast Was hanging from the wall Two black wings The Raven had flown away to bring a handful of land From the outskirts of escape Though I wonder how far the flood’s advanced Do I still exist? How straight had the sail headed on the map From him who closed his eyes, Him whose sleep didn’t lull me? How much does the end come in my direction? The road should crawl through me to its end And my bosom would become the mountain rock
Jarirah and the dead horses’ mane Desiree in the thick book Madam Bovary’s black glove on the snow Hoopoe reciting a tattered letter
The raven didn’t return A woman had poured salt in the way The door had been closed, Moon had rained Before Noah counted parrot camel cow and leopard Toad and whale, two-headed demon Life’s counter was ticking away The ceiling was falling in drops
The raven didn’t return
There was no time And leaving was running backward down the well The star spat the sky The lunatic was sick of his restrictions And the knife is still rowing in the vein
The raven didn’t return
I’ve almost climbed myself panting I’m getting beautiful because of your cliff I just want to be a woman With no torso from my waist down Like myself And no need for the recitation of the stones And the flag that sewed my veins to the serpent Tied my bosom to the spring and Scissored out my dreams
Your islands Are adhered to each other with no preposition I’ve died thousands of times And summer blooms in my teeth Forty years of age passed you behind And the raven didn’t return
Flowers in your skirt walk striped passages And how smaller is the world Form the time I had grown up And mirror was a safe room
How I desire this dusk to comfort Someone had escaped me So fast that blood from my joints… You said jump Don’t turn back Outrun me Words are losing their speech form The thickness of the arabesque letters that wrote the wound A circle with date and God’s name And our intention for a house that… What a pity It’s late for again For a day when… Your wound beats on the passage Don’t leave Don’t stay Get off of your curves I am thousand years old, so old That only me Just what I am A heap of broken bones In ruins of beheaded sentences
On slippery tiles Death was grabbing your throat with his bloody hand To stand still
No matter if sky ignores me The earth is sinking in me still I’m climbing you To become human The land is an azure square That fits the pigeon’s two legs The cooing mother tongue spins Turning and fluttering Dancing and cooing
This raven…
“Love Is a Benevolent Malevolence with Ludicrous Apples”
Who told you that I love you? Seven mountains six seas and two skies have conspired against me. They’re liars. I’m going to wail into the trumpet flowers. I hate you. I would pour lime in your rivers Pour ink on the sheets Draw a demon on the pillow Draw horns on your photo So you would scare the fish I would lock my buttons Spell my nipples Chop the trees in your alley Delete all your files I would call your name backward Steal your shirt Smear your windshield with tar Cover every bend of the road with nails I would lock you in the toilet Go to the movie house absent-mindedly Put bugs in your glass Put pins in your shoes I would break up the game everyday Rearrange the dices Place a marine zoo in the middle of conversation Place a field airport behind separation At night I would hear the jinni in your ears Hear the time-bomb in your veins I would rip your fancy tie zigzagged Change my words in a flash File your bad deeds Your voice, oh God, how I hate it Like a hooting train it freezes my heart Your eyes worse than that Two copper bowls filled with sugar and sweet paste You have a strong aroma of saffron and roses Your heart is full of wriggling gold fish Whatever you ask I’ll tell the truth from now on Whatever you say I’ll deny I would throw Molotov cocktail in your hair So you’d become Rimbaud I would stick my fingers in your dreams You would go begging on your knees I would manipulate your sleep The frogs turn into needles under the blanket I would draw the birds in poems as horses on the trees Draw the women as china tea-pots on the table You’re the exact jumble of squirrel, lion and ant-eater I can leave the wicked bruised cat in the chimney to be I may not stick the sizzling stars on your body when you get lost All the pointers in the world are bent toward your teeth Alleys are folded step by step up to my head Puzzled, I’m trying to memorize your long number The days of the world are inferior without defenses and ramparts Employed to watch you, these crossed eyes and deaf ears of mine Are weary of their perpetual overtime job Because of the clatter of my hammering your wall The plates were in labor Far from my sharp forks The grumbling instruments are bragging in my stomach Elephants in ecstasy dance on the circle of fire Bears in crimson skirts dance on the barrel Your mad parrots’ accent made me mad about India I hope they bring in the cage to discipline the dragon I hope they pick April for the tiger again Before this voracious monkey eats up the white trumpet flowers Before the monster squanders and spills the world in his lap Love is this red rose that I tie to a stone And throw it at your windows suddenly Crashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
“Come This Way”
You block the road And my other feet walk in through the by-way Me runs by your side
You walk and I’m your wanderer By your side I’m an exile
The narrow path that accompanies you Coils around your steps
Come, come this way To disappear there’s a small apple tree here And to flee, the green slopes in the pleats of my skirt
“Resemblance”
Do I resemble you more Or the one whose hands were devoted to the words? And the green ink stains made that obvious
Do you resemble me more Or the one who washed the celery? And folded the clothes
Does he who dialed the phone resemble you more? Or I whose hands were devoted to words
Does this one resemble me more sitting on the chair with black transparent stockings? Or you who have run the street with black shoes
Does the woman who’s shaved her head And loves the doctor in the ward Resemble me more? Or you who have turned the mirror? Which one Me or the third one who has wiped out her face? Or the fourth whose hands are devoted to the wind
"The Winner"
Lend us your eyes sometimes And substitute your name with mine So I can call you endless names Become visible, invisible One two three Now tell me which me's hidden in your shirt I'm you sometimes Offer me your fingers I always run short of caress Then let's face each other standing Turning around, rambling Walking through the breath mist Through our hands Our skin and hair
Invisible, visible, lost We're cut and reshuffled With the ringing laughter
You see! We're one person more again And it's me The one who loves you more
"Greece"
I'm waiting here for someone To go to Greece together To watch the marble statues
I've packed my most beautiful shirt A couple of white candles and my diary
I'm waiting and there’s no sign of him Too late Streets’ names Fashions And automobiles changed again and again
In the meantime Word came that Several wars broke out Several earthquakes and storms occurred And new streets were laid out Twisting and winding
I'm waiting And how kind are the grass And the birds with their droppings And crickets with their singing
Someone's brought me a shade Another one a stone shelter And a metal shirt that never rusts Beautiful flowers are planted around me And fountains are sprinkling In Greece square
The Forth
Azita Ghahraman Translated by Roshanak Bigonah
Do I resemble you more? Or she, whose hands were dedicated to words And her fingers, stained from the green ink That would give her secret away?
Do you resemble me more? Or does she who dialed the numbers Look like you more Or me, whose hands were dedicated to words?
Does she who is sitting on this chair Wearing sheer black stockings Resemble me more? Or you, who have run through all streets With black shoes?
Does the woman who has shaved her head And is in love with the ward’s doctor Resemble me more? Or you, who have turned the mirror? Which one of us Me or the third one who has erased her face Or the forth one Whose hands were dedicated to the wind?
Translated by Roshanak Bigonah
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