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My Favorite Poems

" “Knocks on the door” " by Maram Al-Massri Visit Maram Al-Massri's Page Read Poem
```
Knocks on the door.

Who?

I sweep the dust of my lonelinessunder the rug.

I arrange a smileand open.
```

""'I have come to take your place, sister"" by Anna Akhmatova Visit Anna Akhmatova's Page Read Poem

'I have come to take your place, sister,
At the high fire in the forest's heart.

Your eyes have grown dull, your tears cloudy,
Your hair is gray.

You don't understand the songs birds sing
Anymore, nor stars, nor summer lightning.

Don't hear it when the women strike
The tambourine; yet you fear the silence.

I have come to take your place, sister,
At the high fire in the forest's heart'.

.

.

--'You've come to put me in the grave.

Where is your shovel and your spade?

You're carrying just a flute.

I'm not going to blame you,
Sadly a long time ago
My voice fell mute.

Have my clothes to wear,
Answer my fears with silence,
Let the wind blow
Through your hair, smell the lilac.

You have come by a hard road
To be lit up by this fire.

'
And one went away, ceding
The place to another, wandered
Like a blind woman reading
An unfamiliar narrow path,
And still it seemed to her a flame
Was close.

.

.

In her hand a tambourine .

.

.

And she was like a white flag,
And like the light of a beacon.

""As a White Stone..."" by Anna Akhmatova Visit Anna Akhmatova's Page Read Poem

As a white stone in the well's cool deepness,
There lays in me one wonderful remembrance.

I am not able and don't want to miss this:
It is my torture and my utter gladness.

I think, that he whose look will be directed
Into my eyes, at once will see it whole.

He will become more thoughtful and dejected
Than someone, hearing a story of a dole.

I knew: the gods turned once, in their madness,
Men into things, not killing humane senses.

You've been turned in to my reminiscences
To make eternal the unearthly sadness.

""If the Moon On the Skies..."" by Anna Akhmatova Visit Anna Akhmatova's Page Read Poem

If the moon on the skies does not roam,
But cools, like a seal above,
My dead husband enters the home
To read the letters of love.

He remembers the box, made of oak,
With the lock, very secret and odd,
And spreads through a floor the stroke
Of his feet in the iron bond.

He watches the times of the meetings
And the signatures' blurry set.

Hasn't had he sufficiently grievings
And pains in this word until that?

"A Night in Central Asia" by Anna Akhmatova Visit Anna Akhmatova's Page Read Poem

The time the crescent lies - a Chardush melon slice -
Atop the window ledge, and stuffiness around,
The entry door locked, the whole house bound
To silence by the blue wisteria branches' splice,
And when ice-cold water rests in a clay cup,
The towel's light as snow, the wax candle's flare
Spreads sparks and calls the moths from everywhere,
As in my childhood; silence rumbles, ignoring me,
And then a shadow from the Rembrandt corners' black
Will concentrate, and stumble, and swiftly humble back,
Unable to frighten, let alone to intermit.

It's here loneliness has trapped me in its cages.

The landlady's black cat keeps wide his eyes of ages,
My twin in mirrors' depth would not give me a ride.

I will just sweetly sleep.

I say good night to night.

March 28, 1944
Tashkent
Когда лежит луна ломтем чарджуйской дыни
На краешке окна, и духота кругом,
Когда закрыта дверь, и заколдован дом
Воздушной веткой голубых глициний,
И в чашке глиняной холодная вода,
И полотенца снег, и свечка восковая
Горит, как в детстве, мотыльков сзывая,
Грохочет тишина, моих не слыша слов, -
Тогда из черноты рембрандтовских углов
Склубится что-то вдруг и спрячется туда же,
Но я не встрепенусь, не испугаюсь даже.

Здесь одиночество меня поймало в сети.

Хозяйкин черный кот глядит, как глаз столетий,
И в зеркале двойник не хочет мне помочь.

Я буду сладко спать.

Спокойной ночи, ночь.

28 марта 1944
Ташкент
Anna Akhmatova was among the civilians relocated from European Russia during the World War II.

Her son, Lev Gumilev, was serving his last years at a concentration camp as a political prisoner, and Anna's own stance was very uncertain.

One should not be surprised that, with all the bloom of the spring and the characteristic Central Asian hospitality that many evacuees kept remembering through their lives, this poem bears the weight of no longer the elegiac solitude of early Akhmatova, but of all-penetrating, unbroken loneliness.

"Under Her Dark Veil" by Anna Akhmatova Visit Anna Akhmatova's Page Read Poem

Under her dark veil she wrung her hands.

"Why are you so pale today?

"
"Because I made him drink of stinging grief
Until he got drunk on it.

How can I forget?

He staggered out,
His mouth twisted in agony.

I ran down not touching the bannister
And caught up with him at the gate.

I cried: 'A joke!
That's all it was.

If you leave, I'll die.

'
He smiled calmly and grimly
And told me: 'Don't stand here in the wind.

' "

"You Will Hear Thunder" by Anna Akhmatova Visit Anna Akhmatova's Page Read Poem

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms.

The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
when, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

"Another Birth" by Forough Farrokhzad Visit Forough Farrokhzad's Page Read Poem

A dark and chanted verse is what I am
Forever bearing you
In myself imbued with you
Forth to the morning of eternal burgeonings and blooms
Oh yes I drew you through this verse oh breath
Oh yes I drew you through
This verse and crafted you
To seas to trees to fire I grafted you.

Life may be
A street crossed by a woman with a basket every day
Life may be
Rope for a man who hangs himself from a branch.

Life may be a child coming home from school.

Life may be a cigarette lighting
Up in the narcotic pause between lovemaking and love made
Or the dazed gaze of a passerby
Tipping his hat to a passerby
With a senseless smile and a Good Morning.

Life may be that cloistered moment
When my gaze comes to ruin in your pupils
Wherein there lies a feeling
Which I shall blend
With the moon's impression
And the night's perception.

In a room the size of loneliness
My heart the size of love
Looks at the simple pretext of its happiness,
The vase's flowers, their beautiful decay,
The sapling that you implanted in our garden
And the canaries' song
Wide as a window frame.

Oh
My lot is this
My lot is this
This sky abducted from my sight by a hung curtain,
This passage down a deserted stairway
To retrieve something from amid the rot and banished thoughts.

My lot is a sad promenade in nostalgia's garden,
My lot is to catch my death in the despair of the voice that says to me
'I love
Your hands.

'
I shall plant my hands in the garden
And I will grow I know I know oh I know
And in my hand's inkstained hollow
The swallow
Shall lay its eggs.

I shall wear
A pair of cherries as ear-rings
And dress my nails with dahlia petals
There is an alley where
Boys who were in love with me even now
Linger with the very unkempt hair and lanky legs
Recollecting the innocent smiles of a little girl
The wind blew away one night.

There is an alley my heart
Has stolen from my childhood's neighborhood
A form journeying along time's line
Inseminating time's dry line with form
A form aware of an image
Back from a mirror's feast
And that is how it is
That somebody dies
While someone abides
None who fish
In the tiny stream that drains out into a ditch
Can ever fish up a pearl.

I
Know a sad little ocean sprite
Down in her watery haven
Who oh so softly
Plays her heart through a flute,
A sad little sprite
Who dies from a kiss at night
To be born from a kiss at dawn.

Translated by A.

Z.

Foreman
The Original:
تولدى ديگر
فروغ فرخزاد
همه هستي من آيه تاريكيس ت
كه ترا در خود تكرار كنان
به سحرگاه شكفتن ها و رستن هاي ابدي خواهد برد
من در اين آيه ترا آه كشيدم آه
من در اين آيه ترا
به درخت و آب و آتش پيوند زدم
زندگی شاید
یک خیابان درازست که هر روز زنی با زنبیلی از آن میگذرد
زندگی شاید
ریسمانی ست که مردی با آن خود را از شاخه میاویزد
زندگی شاید طفلیست که از مدرسه بر میگردد
زندگی شاید افروختن سیگاری باشد ، در فاصلهء رخوتناک دو
همآغوشی
یا عبور گیج رهگذری باشد
که کلاه از سر بر میدارد
و به یک رهگذر دیگر با لبخندی بی معنی میگوید ' صبح بخیر '
زندگی شاید آن لحظه مسدودیس ت
که نگاه من ، در نی نی چشمان تو خود را ویران میسازد
ودر این حسی است
که من آن را با ادراک ماه و با دریافت ظلمت خواهم آمیخت
در اتاقی که به اندازهء یک تنهاییس ت
دل من
که به اندازهء یک عشقست
به بهانه های سادهء خوشبختی خود مینگرد
به زوال زیبای گل ها در گلدان
به نهالی که تو در باغچهء خانه مان کاشته ای
و به آواز قناری ها
که به اندازهء یک پنجره میخوانن د
آه.

.

.

سهم من اینست
سهم من اینست
سهم من ،
آسمانیس ت که آویختن پرده ای آنرا از من میگیرد
سهم من پایین رفتن از یک پله مترو کست
و به چیزی در پوسیدگی و غربت و اصل گشتن
سهم من گردش حزن آلودی در باغ خاطره هاست
و در اندوه صدایی جان دادن که به من بگوید :
' دستهایت را
دوست میدارم '
دستهایم را در باغچه میکارم
سبز خواهم شد ، میدانم ، میدانم ، میدانم
و پرستوها در گودی انگشتان جوهریم
تخم خواهند گذاشت
گوشواری به دو گوشم میآویزم
از دو گیلاس سرخ همزاد
و به ناخن هایم برگ گل کوکب میچسبان م
کوچه ای هست که در آنجا
پسرانی که به من عاشق بودند ، هنوز
با همان موهای درهم و گردن های باریک و پاهای لاغر
به تبسم های معصوم دخترکی میاندیش ند که یک شب او را
باد با خود برد
کوچه ای هست که قلب من آن را
از محل کودکیم دزدیده ست
سفر حجمی در خط زمان
و به حجمی خط خشک زمان را آبستن کردن
حجمی از تصویری آگاه
که ز مهمانی یک آینه بر میگردد
و بدینسان ست
که کسی میمیرد
و کسی میماند
هیچ صیادی در جوی حقیری که به گودالی میریزد ، مروارید ی
صید نخواهد کرد .

من
پری کوچک غمگینی را
میشناسم که در اقیانوس ی مسکن دارد
و دلش را در یک نی لبک چوبین
مینوازد آرام ، آرام
پری کوچک غمگینی
که شب از یک بوسه میمیرد
و سحرگاه از یک بوسه به دنیا خواهد آمد

"Border Walls" by Forough Farrokhzad Visit Forough Farrokhzad's Page Read Poem

Now, again in the silent night,
sequestrant walls, border walls
like plants entwine,
so they may be the guardians of my love.

Now, again the town's evil murmurs,
like agitated schools of fish,
flee the darkness of my extremities.

Now, again windows rediscover themselves
in the pleasure of contact with scattered perfumes,
and trees, in slumberous orchards, shed their bark,
and soil, with its thousand inlets
inhales the dizzy particles of the moon.

***
Now
come closer
and listen
to the anguished beats of my love,
that spread
like the tom-tom of African drums
along the tribe of my limbs.

I, feel.

I know
which moment
is the moment of prayer.

Now stars
are lovers.

In night's refuge,
from innermost breezes, I waft.

In night's refuge, I
tumble madly forth
with my ample tresses, in your palms,
and I offer you the equatorial flowers of this young tropic.

Come with me,
come to that star with me
that is centuries away
from earth's concretion and futile scales,
and no one there
is afraid of light.

On islands adrift upon the waters, I breathe.

I am in search of a share in the expansive sky,
void of the swell of vile thoughts.

Refer with me,
refer with me
to the source of all being,
to the sanctified center of a single origin,
to the moment I was created from you
refer with me,
I am not complete from you.

Now,
on the peaks of my breasts,
doves are flying.

Now,
within the cocoon of my lips,
butterfly kisses are immersed in thoughts of flight.

Now,
the altar of my body
is ready for love's worship.

Refer with me,
I'm powerless to speak
because I love you,
because 'I love you' is a phrase
from the world of futilities
and antiquities and redundancies.

Refer with me,
I'm powerless to speak.

In night's refuge, let me make love to the moon,
let me be filled
with tiny raindrops,
with undeveloped hearts,
with the volume of the unborn,
let me be filled.

Maybe my love
will cradle the birth of another Christ.

Translated by Layli Arbab Shirani

"Rebirth" by Forough Farrokhzad Visit Forough Farrokhzad's Page Read Poem

My entire verve-
is a dark verse.

It will take you-
to the unending dawn of blooms,
flight and light.

In this verse,
I heaved you a sigh, sigh.

In this verse,
I tied you to trees,
water and flames.

Life perhaps,
is that long, shady road,
where every day, a woman wanders-
with her basket of fruits.

Life perhaps, is that rope;
the one that a man would hang himself with-
in a gray, rainy day-
from a thick branch.

Life perhaps,
is that child who is running back home.

Life perhaps,
is those brief smokes,
in the lazy, idle times-
stolen from two making-loves.

Life perhaps,
is that still instant,
when my eyes sink into-
the reflection of your sight.

Life perhaps,
is its sheltering sense;
I will merge it- with the flood of moonlight-
and the frozen abode of night.

In my little,
lonely room,
my heart is invaded-
by the silent crowd of love.

I am keeping track of my life:
The beautiful decay of a rose, in this antique vase;
the growing plant that you brought,
and those birds in their timber cage.

They are singing every hour,
up to the full depth-
of their view.

Oh…
This is my share.

This is my share.

My share,
is a piece of sky-
and a little shade-
can take it away.

My share,
is a gradual descent-
from some deserted stairs.

It is a sudden landing- in some forsaken, exiling place.

My share,
is a gloomy march-
in the distant garden of my past.

My share,
is a slow death-
for the advent of a voice.

The voice-
who once said:
“I love your hands”.

I will plant my hands.

I will grow,
I know, I know, I know.

And a lost bird-
will lay lots of eggs-
in my inky palms.

I will pick a pair of twin cherries,
and I will hang them on my ears.

I will take two white oleanders,
And I will put them charily-
on my fingertips.

There is a road,
full of young, vulgar boys.

I used to be their sole muse.

They are still hanging-
with their untidy hair,-
with the same thin legs,
about the same square.

And,
they are still thinking-
of that little girl with a shy beam;
the girl that one day-
faded in the breeze.

There is a congested road that my heart,
kept it from my childhood neighborhood.

The journey of a mass in the row of Time;
And loading this arid line,
with the weight of its shape-
a polished, smooth, even shape-
coming from a place,
just after the village of mirrors.

And it is so-
that someone remains
and some will die.

Did you ever meet a fisher who caught a pearl-
in the yellow, inert, close-by river?

I know a sad, little fairy.

She is living in a remote ocean.

And she is playing her heart-
into a wooden flute.

A sad little fairy-
who dies every dusk.

She is reborn the day after-
right at the dawn,
from a slight kiss.

Translation: Maryam Dilmaghani, May 2006, Montréal.

"The Wind Will Take Us Away" by Forough Farrokhzad Visit Forough Farrokhzad's Page Read Poem

In my little night, alas
The storm has a fateful tryst
with the sweet sleep of  the trees.

In my little night, alas
The freezing fright of ruin streams.

Listen!
The shadows are stepping by…
We must flee.

This bliss seems so odd to me,
I am addicted to my despair,
I feel that something will disrupt
this flowing peace of our quiet night.

**&**
Listen!
The shadows are stepping by…
We must flee.

Don’t you see?

Our roof is shaking in fear of collapse,
and over this roof,  an immense dark cloud,
like a dull, grieving crowd,
is expecting the moment of cry.

Don’t you hear?

Night is marching behind the window’s glass
and the wind is cutting our yard’s breath
It seems that  stranger eyes
are watching this house.

Listen!
The shadows are stepping by…
We must flee.

**&**
You,
O green like the soul of the leaves,
Put your hands into mine,
And hold them like the burning memories of love.

You,
O green like the soul of the leaves,
Leave your lips to the stroke of mine,
And savor them like the swell flavor of an old wine.

If we forget,
The wind will take us away,
The wind will take us away.

Translation: Maryam Dilmaghani, May 2006, October 2006, Montreal.

"The Sin" by Forough Farrokhzad Visit Forough Farrokhzad's Page Read Poem

I sinned a sin full of pleasure,
In an embrace which was warm and fiery.

I sinned surrounded by arms
that were hot and avenging and iron.

In that dark and silent seclusion
I looked into his secret-full eyes.

my heart impatiently shook in my breast
In response to the request of his needful eyes.

In that dark and silent seclusion,
I sat dishevelled at his side.

his lips poured passion on my lips,
I escaped from the sorrow of my crazed heart.

I whispered in his ear the tale of love:
I want you, o life of mine,
I want you, O life-giving embrace,
O crazed lover of mine, you.

desire sparked a flame in his eyes;
the red wine danced in the cup.

In the soft bed, my body
drunkenly quivered on his chest.

I sinned a sin full of pleasure,
next to a shaking, stupefied form.

o God, who knows what I did
In that dark and quiet seclusion.

"Sonnet XVII: I do not love you as if you were brine-rose, topaz" by Pablo Neruda Visit Pablo Neruda's Page Read Poem

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

"Diving Into the Wreck" by Adrienne Rich Visit Adrienne Rich's Page Read Poem

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.

I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.

The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.

We know what it is for,
we who have used it.

Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.

Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.

I go down.

My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.

The words are purposes.

The words are maps.

I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.

I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.

And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.

We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.

I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.