Modern Poetry of Pakistan

by Iftikhar Arif

  What rainbow, what clouds, what morning breeze!

  What planet Earth!

  And in this marketplace,

  you and I are sold,

  we all are sold—

  and the heart, like a beggar,

  endures the rebuff.

  Like a speechless traveler, desire plods on

  without destination.

  Translated from Balochi by Azmat Ansari and Waqas Khwaja

  The Road of Memory

  Come, where are you, profound and learned collections of my thoughts? Where?

  My eyes pine to see you!

  Tears weave a thread of pearls, no less than the latticed window of my memories.

  This is the way I compete with the clouds.

  The day like fire and twilight like burning embers rain on my heart—

  I fight against my thoughts like a madman.

  I am not Shah Murid that I can enlist a pigeon from holy Mecca as my messenger,

  I am not Jam Durrak that the rainbow itself asks after my well-being,

  I am not crazy for a glimpse of your glory, like Mast Tawakali.

  I have no memory of Hani, Sammo, or Sangeen.

  You are that dream of an expired night I have forgotten—

  or the opening line of a love poem that flits through the mind and is gone—

  or music of the morning breeze that can only be felt, not seen.

  You are the firefly that glimmers in the night and then vanishes—

  or the clap of lightning? I do not know!

  Or the night’s new moon that has just emerged but cannot be seen,

  or the false dawn, obscured by clouds and rain,

  or a mullah’s faith (that no one knows what it is)?

  Or are you waiting for God, to see when He might show Himself?

  Or are you that dream of God whose time of fulfillment is not known?

  Or are you, like Abraham’s father, a worshiper of idols?

  Or are you the secret tears of a lover?

  Come, where is that place where in my desolation I may find some rest?

  When will my eyes be cooled by your sight?

  When will my tears relent and let the clouds shield me with their shade?

  My heart boils in the perpetual fire of this world.

  I do not know my path or my destination—

  I am lost on the slopes of this earthly world.

  How long must I sustain my grieving heart with wine?

  How long must I pine for a soothing glimpse of my beloved?

  How long must I yearn for the dark tresses of women with sleep-heavy eyes

  and for the fragrance that spreads when they shake their dupattas?

  Where are you, profound and learned volumes of my thoughts?

  Come, where is the beloved of my imagination?

  Come, where is that place where in my desolation I may find some rest?

  When will my eyes be cooled by your sight?

  Translated from Balochi by Azmat Ansari and Waqas Khwaja

  Power and Powerlessness

  Dear God! Dear God!

  Where is that world,

  that sky, that earth,

  that night and that morning,

  those flowering stars and that majestic moon?

  Where is that wine and those colorful fancies bathed in wine,

  that best, most pleasant of seasons,

  the world that is my resting place, but is physically separated from my body,

  where my sinless soul alarms and bewilders the tribe of angels—

  the world that is far from hell’s punishment

  for the deliberate sins of my old age,

  where my countless unfulfilled desires equal the price of heaven?

  In the market of sorrow and grief,

  where neither I nor my home exist?

  I have traveled long to reach my place of rest

  but to this moment I have not found it.

  Where is it? Where?

  That earth, that sky,

  that world!

  Dear God! Dear God!

  It is here!

  Myself. I am a crumbling ruin of signs,

  a deep ocean of dreams seeking salvation in the hereafter,

  a churning vortex of bloodstained memories.

  In the flow of time, in the sweeping winds and storms of the heart, who knows the walls of the ocean’s waves?

  Which way should I turn?

  I will go down with the waters!

  Where is that world?

  Dear God, where is that world?

  Translated from Balochi by Azmat Ansari and Waqas Khwaja

  Traveler

  Traveler,

  step into my heart—

  the earth is burning.

  Why do you turn your face from one who gave you sanctuary?

  Are you sure you understand what you are doing?

  Despite our eyes, we are blind,

  the heart is far removed.

  I have been wringing my hands at what I have discovered of the world,

  your bitter smiles.

  The pain you have caused me is a reproach to life,

  this pain will live forever in my heart.

  We all await the dawn of a new morning.

  Thoughts of your love spread above me like the shade of clouds,

  the image of the destination is far from my mind.

  I burn in a fire of thorns.

  Where are they who no longer desire the world?

  You are the embodiment of the pain of separation—

  I am lost in thoughts of you.

  Come, see the bier of my delirious fancies,

  accept the favors of your brothers—

  let me carry the weight of hopeless dreams from centuries past,

  let me assume the burden of waiting.

  The grave is narrow, dark, oppressive—

  all that is left of luminous fancies.

  Traveler,

  step into my heart.

  The whole earth is on fire.

  Translated from Balochi by Azmat Ansari and Waqas Khwaja

  In the Hour of Death

  The eye remains open in the throes of death, and silence reigns.

  This state has its own language, whether we admit it or not—

  Eyes are needed to perceive it, ears to hear it.

  The old generation witnessed a fearsome revolution, and yet this too is a time of adversity—

  the hour of death.

  The dying man sees, although his eyes have no light.

  He is deaf, but his ears are listening—

  there is a soul but no life.

  See hatred and love and indifference disengage from the corpse,

  the soul’s agonized cries have shaken the entire world,

  your ears are deaf, and my tongue mute.

  How can your borrowed tongue be trusted?

  I am like earth’s shuddering rumble during an earthquake.

  You are content only in this, that you have vanquished forts with sword and spear,

  but I pine for my heritage and my motherland.

  Born of Adam, I am the rightful heir to love and affection.

  It is true that your success has wounded and subdued me.

  You are pleased that your persecution and injustice

  have killed a son,

  and he, the son of freedom.

  There is another son,

  one who is the star of the motherland’s eyes, the fulfillment of its heart’s desire,

  the hope of humanity’s future,

  the wish for perpetual happiness come true.

  This son is the spirit of friendship; he is love’s hope for tomorrow,

  good tidings of the defeat of doom.

  You cannot kill life’s ideas by plucking a flower

  nor, in this way, prevent the diffusion of its scent.

  If you wish to destroy me, kill my soul first,

  If my death is your desire, first hang love’s hopes o
n the gallows,

  and if you wish to annihilate me, first tear out the beams of the dwelling place of thought.

  Strike down knowledge with an arrow—

  I will not end with death.

  I am love, I will not vanish.

  My footprints will endure until the end of time—

  as long as this world exists, the line of my blood will shine.

  If I die, you die,

  if you live, I live.

  The eye remains open in the throes of death, and silence reigns.

  This state has its own language, whether we admit it or not—

  yet eyes are needed to perceive it, and ears to hear it.

  The old generation witnessed a fearsome revolution, and yet this too is a time of adversity—

  the hour of death!

  Translated from Balochi by Azmat Ansari and Waqas Khwaja

  KISHWAR NAHEED

  Counterclockwise

  Even if my eyes were to become the soles of your feet,

  this fear would not leave you,

  that though I am not able to see,

  I can still perceive words and physical forms

  like a fragrance.

  Even if, to secure myself,

  I would rub my nose off my face

  in your presence,

  this fear would not leave you,

  that though I no longer have a sense of smell,

  I am still able to speak.

  Even if my lips,

  singing praises of your worldly might,

  became dry and soulless,

  this fear would not leave you,

  that though I have been rendered speechless,

  I can still walk.

  Even after binding me in the fetters of marriage vows,

  of shame and modesty,

  paralyzing me completely,

  this fear would not leave you,

  that though I am unable to walk,

  I can still use my mind to think.

  Fear of my freedom, my instinct for survival,

  dread of my ability to think—

  what strange specters occupy your thoughts?

  Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed

  Grass Is Just Like Me

  Grass, too, is like me—

  only by spreading itself under the feet does it attain

  its life’s wish.

  Damp, what does it signify?

  Chafing embarrassment?

  Or passion’s fire?

  Grass, too, is like me—

  just when it is able to lift its head

  the mower arrives,

  frenzied, to make it soft as velvet

  and even it out.

  So you toil

  at leveling woman as well.

  Neither the earth’s urge to bloom,

  nor woman’s, dies.

  If you ask me, that idea of cutting

  a path was right.

  Those who cannot stand the impairment

  of a defeated spirit

  become a patch of earth

  and prepare a path for the strong—

  they are husks of straw,

  not grass.

  Grass is just like me.

  Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja

  Nightmare

  The goat awaits slaughter

  and I, the dawn,

  for each day on the office desk I am slain.

  This is my price

  for the lies told.

  Like fresh graves, faces heavy with powder

  come to visit me—

  in the cemetery of minds, only such adornments

  are befitting.

  My country and I were born at the same time,

  but we both lost our ability to see in our childhood.

  I have not seen bread.

  I shape it in my mind and imagine myself eating it.

  Many of my peers see it only in their dreams.

  Women in my country

  pray at the sight of the new moon

  and save the remaining prayers

  for the next sighting.

  Even after affixing their thumbprint on the permission for a second marriage

  they offer their prayers when they see the new moon,

  perhaps to improve the afterlife for deceitful ones like us.

  We boast of our military courage

  and flies keep assaulting us.

  We consider swords taller than ourselves as our ancestors

  and wear their color on our tongues.

  Those who pass their lives in rust-worn tongues and times are

  office clerks.

  Only rust-worn tongues can pronounce

  that the accounts of those who vacate their offices are all wrong,

  and of those who take over, all clean and right.

  Now the blacksmith who forges the sword believes,

  it is he who inscribes victory.

  Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed

  We Sinful Women

  We, here, are the sinful women,

  undaunted by the grandeur

  of the richly robed—

  we neither sell our lives

  nor lower our heads

  nor fold our hands.

  We, here, are the sinful women.

  Those who trade in the harvest of our bodies

  stand victorious,

  courtiers of distinction,

  arbiters of the wealthy.

  We, here, are the sinful women—

  when we set forth holding aloft the banner of truth,

  we find roadways draped in falsehood,

  on each threshold tales of damnation,

  find tongues that could have spoken slit.

  We, here, are the sinful women—

  even if night comes in pursuit,

  these eyes will not be blotted out,

  for now that the wall has been torn,

  do not insist on raising it again.

  We, here, are the sinful women,

  undaunted by the grandeur

  of the richly robed—

  we neither sell our lives

  nor lower our heads

  nor fold our hands.

  Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed

  SHABNAM SHAKEEL

  Curse of Infertility

  Lo, night once again writhes in labor,

  an ancient hurt that is its fate since time immemorial.

  Its face begins to darken

  with pain and anguish.

  Racing through arteries,

  diffused through every vein,

  is a fear as well.

  She is caught in that life-and-death struggle

  which is vital to the act of creation.

  In but a little while

  she will have given birth to

  an uncertain day

  smeared with suspicion—

  and seeing it

  will rise to her lips but one malediction:

  Next time, Almighty God, may my embryo be still!

  Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed

  Elixir of Life

  An ardor that expired in its prime,

  an ideal, shattered,

  a dream, unfulfilled—

  you lament these,

  carry within you a lingering heartache,

  an anxiety keeps you continually restless.

  In the city of memories you sit behind closed doors.

  Recall the soothing hours that have passed,

  that brought with them intimations of incompleteness,

  and be grateful to your ruling stars

  from whose orbits you received

  wisdom to discern the ecstasies of anguish.

  Whenever anyone here

  attempted to hold time’s sand in a fist,

  or clip the wings

  of a moment floating away like a butterfly

  to preserve it for an eternity,

  ardors crumbled in desperation,

  the aspects of drea
ms lost their shape

  and aspirations became baffling sphinxes,

  as if they had not a grain

  of desire to survive.

  Perhaps the elixir of life does not suit them at all.

  Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed

  Every Dream of Ours, Framed by the Hereafter

  Each day of mine, pledged to the day after

  the present perpetually I hazard as wager

  bind to the cross

  mingle in dust

  venerating each day after, squander the day that is

  and sit bewailing

  that what is obtainable today

  may not be snatched away tomorrow.

  What have I not done in this apprehension, this fear—

  postponed every pleasure to the day after

  for the day after considered it permissible to strangulate the present.

  A murderer, but how can anyone recognize me

  since in tomorrow’s casket

  wearing the victim’s face I lie

  but on my hands

  these spots of blood

  with whom should they plead

  who invoke as judge?

  Where, where, should they go?

  If only there were someone

  to listen to their pleas

  offer them justice

  find me guilty

  and in the casket of tomorrow

  drive the last nail.

  Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed

  Ghazal: I Am Schooled in Scriptures of Grief

  I am schooled in scriptures of grief

  I have grown up in wretchedness

  They’ll just be a waste of time

  the things in which I am involved

  Is this my empire and my throne

  or am I on the gallows tree?

  Half of me is above the sand

  the other half is buried beneath

  I have granted half of his request

  I am holding out on the other half

  It is not easy to knock me over

  I am standing on my own two feet

  Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja

  Heritage

  I

  Easy nights, easy days—