by Sunil Sharma
The night and I—this is my life.
Sorrow and the heart—this is my joy.
I drink heart’s blood all night
in her memory. This is my pale pink wine.
At night I bewail the insomnia
of absence. This is my cordial song.
I and dark nights in grief’s corner—
this is where I secretly rejoice.
Her phantom closes my eyes to myself,
for this is my soulmate at night.
She shouldn’t be distressed by my distress.
This is just what I suspected from my heart.
Sometimes I die for her love, sometimes
I live again—this is how my life goes.
Permit me to die at your feet,
for this is my eternal life.
Khusrau costs you no more than to say,
‘This is the slave I got for free.’
7 Ghazal 249: asarī namānd bāqī az man andar ārzūyat
Yearning for you, no trace of me remains.
What shall I do, for no one gets his fill
of gazing upon your beautiful cheek.
All day in your street, all night at your door,
I have no goal but to look at your face.
I will now circumambulate your street
with just my eyes, for my legs are worn down
to the knees in searching for you.
By faith, will you accept that tracking down
your fidelity, I fed my blood-soaked
heart to the dogs on your street? My mind,
my reason, my senses, heart and eyes too
are devoid of any image but the image
of your face. No, I cannot rightly render
service to you short of yielding
my sweet life in yearning for you.
Which garden do you come from that your scent
is so sweet, my Rose? Your breeze enlarges
the soul, and the dead heart is brought to life.
Though you load my body, weak as a hair,
with a universe of woe, I’ll not trade
a single strand of your hair for both worlds.
What need to explain to you how I am,
now that Khusrau has become a legend
in yearning and searching for you?
8 Ghazal 257: muflisī az pādshā’ī khushtar ast
Poverty is more pleasant than majesty;
depravity, more pleasant than piety.
Majesty has its headaches, and when
last I looked, beggary was more pleasant.
Since kings let no one approach them,
being indigent among the poor
is more pleasant.
When pride gets into someone’s head,
being pals with a dog from the streets
is more pleasant.
When the heart breaks with melancholy
over some beauty, that breaking is more pleasant
than any salve. Public love play with idols
is more pleasant than all this devout hypocrisy.
Once won, there’s no pleasure in love.
Separation, for those who play this game,
is more pleasant.
Put your base love out of your mind,
Khusrau. Love for the sacred secret
is more pleasant.
9 Ghazal 286: bīdār shaw dilā ki jahān jā-yi khvāb nīst
Wake up, my heart! This world’s no place to sleep.
Among these ruins, it’s not proper to sit
safe and secure.
Why ask the drowsy sleepers what it’s like,
that sweet sleep for which there is no answer?
In the grave, no friend feigns faithfulness.
Only in the ruins beneath the dust
can the weary dwell content.
Since the drunk do not know time’s tyrannies,
nothing’s better for the sober than wine
and a simple meal.
It’s wrong to ask life’s savour from heaven,
a piddling cup that holds no proper hope.
Sāqī, send round to Khusrau a drop
from the goblet of love,
for there is no headier wine than that.
10 Ghazal 288: mast-i turā bi-hīch may-ī ihtiyāj nīst
One drunk on you needs
no wine. No doctor
has the cure for my pain.
Moon, don’t rise before my eyes,
for with his face
I have no need for you at all.
Don’t tell me tales of Jamshī’s crown.
The dust at the door of the Magian temple
is no less than a diadem.
How long will you petition the friend
with your needs? He is aware.
There’s no need for such impertinence.
The coin of the heart not stamped
with unity is counterfeit
with no currency in any land.
The kingdom of the heart was plundered
by the beauties’ tyranny. Be gone, heart,
for there’s no tax on ruined villages.
Khusrau, none of the insightful have seen
your like among people, which is nothing
but an attribute of their squinting eyes.
11 Ghazal 313: gar bāgh pur shukūfa vu gulzar khurram ast
What does it profit if roses rejoice
and the garden is in full bloom?
Our heart is sorrow-bound.
Like the breeze at dawn
we rustled through the world and found
that joyful hearts are scarce
in this realm of living sadness.
Torrents of grief are the only rain
to fall from the hard, azure sky.
How miserable to dwell
beneath this turquoise dome.
Wherever he lives around the world,
heart’s blood is the only wine
a poor man drinks.
People regard the ethical with low contempt
while the ignorant see themselves
as the ultimate in rectitude.
How can one look to heaven for joy
when it too wanders bewildered, clad
in funereal indigo?
The spawn of the age
show loyalty to no man.
Pity anyone who’s not part of the crowd.
A cup of dregs
from the bottom of the barrel
is in truth more pleasant
than a goblet drunk
in the palace of kings.
Go, Khusrau,
and find a corner
of contentment in which to dwell.
Drink wine, and never turn
from a friend
in whom you can trust.
12 Ghazal 379: khum tuhī gasht u hanūz-am jān az may sīrāb nīst
The vat is empty,
and my heart is still not sated with wine.
If finer vintages are exhausted,
O heart of mine,
your blood has been kept in reserve.
The clanking of Majnūn’s chains is organ
music for lovers, a music
the prudent don’t have the ear to taste.
Wheeling fates,
don’t bother. I have enemies
enough to love me: no need for the butcher
where the executioner stands ready.
Tell the king, ‘Make his blood run!’
Tell the authorities, ‘Off with his head!’
To abandon the beloved for the sake
of one’s life is no part of the lovers’ creed.
Look out.
If you have any sense, beware!
Take no pity on me: madness
is the best thing to pack for this path.
If the beloved’s beauty is not in sight,
its phantom can still make me happy.
In poor homes, moonlight makes the best candle.
Homicidal hunter!
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Infidel!
Be gentle a while.
The helpless gazelle cannot contend
with barbarian arrows. Why does that heart,
no longer mine,
circle around you so? Are no
impatient arrows left in your quiver?
Sometimes in my dreams, you said
you would show me your face.
Tell it to a stranger.
One who knows you never sleeps.
Heart,
you will die thirsty.
Turn away from that dimple.
If you dig any deeper in that well,
blood will come to the surface:
No water to be had there.
Khusrau,
first tie on the infidel’s sash,
then bow down in adoration.
That eyebrow is a temple for idols:
No prayer niche to be found there.
13 Ghazal 417: marā bāz az tarīq-i sāqī-yi khud yād mīāyad
When my sāqī brings the cup, it stirs up
memories again, and again old sorrows
visit my joyless heart. Misfortune comes
on one side to offer congratulations,
and on the other his absence looms,
sword poised to kill: Burn,
wounded lover! He comes cold and
loveless. Poor nightingale, wail!
The hunter is on his way.
Before him, I can’t choke back my sad moans:
the dog starts howling when it sees a thief.
Sleep, be gone! You’re no friend of mine tonight
as I remember that someone’s tangled hair.
The wind wracks me with his scent:
stop it for once there on the porch
and board up the window when it blows
from that direction. When he’s absent,
his scent wafts from wild marjoram
and won’t let me forget how his hair curls.
He left and reduced me to ruins. Muslims, help!
Spiteful he saps my foundations again.
I love you so much
I am overcome with jealousy
if you treat someone else
as badly as you treated me.
Don’t listen, my dear. The legend of Khusrau
will sear your heart, for it carries
the scent of Farhād’s anguished heart.
14 Ghazal 467: chi khush subhī damīd imshab az rū-yi yār-i khud
What a fine dawn broke tonight
from my lover’s face! This early spring
refreshed the garden of my life.
Praise God! Fortune’s field bore fruit,
and nothing my eyes rained down
upon my days has gone to waste.
Was separation the Judgement Day?
So it seems to me. When it came to an end,
I saw the door of paradise open
upon her exquisite face, and now
that I know nothing of my countless pains,
I can give my friends no account
of my one-time sorrows. My heart and soul,
how they agonized over me
during our separation. Now I show
them her face and I put them both to shame.
I rubbed my eyes all night against
my lover’s feet; for once my eyes
were soothed, though surely her feet ached.
What luck it is, what good fortune
when an unfortunate like me
gazes on a sweetheart like you!
I am amazed by what I’ve done.
You bestowed two kisses on me,
and I swooned with the very first.
Let’s start again, for I’ve lost count.
I go now, but from time to time
you will stub your toe on me,
because of all the dust I leave
as a memorial in your street.
What you declaim so publicly,
Khusrau, is a dream. Where did you doze off
to see things like this around you?
15 Ghazal 490: man banda-yi ān rūy ki dīdan naguzārand
I am enslaved by that face
no one’s allowed to see,
driven mad by ringlets
no one’s allowed to touch.
A thirsty flame licks my breast,
and displayed in the distance
a refreshing drink
no one’s allowed to taste.
Whether I look at him or not,
I don’t have long to live.
Is this any time, my friend,
not to be allowed to look?
Hearts and eyes by the hundreds
await your arrows. So unfair—
is it only hapless me
they’re not allowed to strike?
Lord, what tortured agony
this captive bird must feel!
They won’t approve its sacrifice
and it’s not allowed to fly.
Let me hear a single word,
and I’ll give up my soul.
Am I to die frustrated
and not allowed to hear?
My breast was flayed, my heart
was ripped to shreds. Why won’t
these complacent fools allow me
to tear off these tattered clothes?
Today the breeze picked up
the smell of my heart and spleen.
Careful, be sure it’s not
allowed to blow his way.
Khusrau was pierced again and again
by cruel thorns of separation.
Will he ever be allowed
to pluck a rose from your cheek?
16 Ghazal 694: khabaram shud-ast k-imshab sar-i yār khvāhī āmad
I heard the news that you will come
to see your friend tonight.
I offer my head, a sacrifice
to the road down which you ride.
I am about to breathe my last.
Come, so I may live.
What good will it do for you
to come once I am no more?
I can endure, I know, the grief
and sadness of your absence,
if you come, like good fortune,
into my embrace one day.
Like two dice, your eyes have won
my heart and soul, and if you come
to gamble, both worlds by rights
are now yours to win.
A heart and a sigh—your path
into my heart—are all I have left.
Walk this path carefully
so you won’t come back a casualty.
Cover your face,
or you will come to be numbered
an eighth star of the Pleiades
upon the astronomers’ charts.
People’s blood is your wine,
and you drink it without cease.
Don’t drink from this goblet,
or you’ll come tomorrow hung-over.
All the gazelles of the desert
have lowered their heads to the ground
hoping that you will come
back to the hunt one day.
Coming once, you carried off a hundred
like Khusrau, heart and soul.
Come like this two or three times,
and who will survive?
17 Ghazal 857: afsūs az in hayāt ki bar bad mīravad
Alas for this life
that passes with the wind
and for these habits of ours
that do not follow
the path of justice.
Because I run with demons,
an angel cries out
for me each moment in heaven.
Where will this battered heart
build a place to dwell?
My torrent sweeps away the foundations.
The ascetic busies himself giving advice,
and the mind of the poor drunk pursues
joyless playthings. When hung-over, I make
a hundred resolutions to repent;
all are forgotten when the cup-bearer comes.
But I am slave to the fortune of God’s good servant
who lives free from servitude to foul ego.
Don’t waste those brief days of life
that pass with the wind
in laughter and play like the rose.
O ego, take heed,
the star is turning.
O bird, be aware,
the hunter is on the move.
Step softly
on the surface of the earth
for you tread on the pretty faces of the fairy-born.
Can the blow of Khusrau’s words affect you?
No, not when talk runs to Farhād’s axe.
18 Ghazal 866: ‘ishqat khabar az ‘ālam-i bīhūshī āvarad
Love for you brings news of a world
beyond consciousness
and brings the pious
to drink down goblets of wine.
Your cheek broke the repentant vows
of dozens of ascetic devotees
and nearly had them wearing black.
Yearning for you
is the sheriff
who seizes Sultan Reason by the hair
and hauls him before the herald.
To die by your sword—
is this a goal for which one can strive?
One already dead isn’t inclined
to strive quite so high.
‘A drink,’ I implored, ‘from those lips
for a madman’s sake.’
‘This is an elixir,’
he replied, ‘that induces unconsciousness.’
Remembering a certain someone,
I grew weak. Doctor, a prescription please
to bring on forgetfulness.
Khusrau,
if a fairy spell
does not control your mind, cover your eyes
from the spell that spells catatonia.
19 Ghazal 870: dil raft u ārzūyat az dil namīshavad
My heart left me, but longing
for you won’t leave my heart.