(1925-2000)
Abmad Shamlou was a prolific Persian poet, writer, and journalist. Shamlou’s career spanned over half a century, a century with decisive turns in the country’s socio-political environment. Such environment combined with the richness of the poet’s repertory of myth and his universal outlook on human condition allowed him to use themes that are to some extent exotic to Iranian culture in his poetry.
In his poetry, Shamlou takes on more complex uses compared to other contemporary poets and his style is quite pretentious. The abstractions used in his poems are less figurative than usual for Persian poetry tradition and one sees the conscious intervention of the poet is the arrangements of emotions and thoughts. The themes in his poetry range from political issues, mostly freedom, to the human condition of love. He was a Nobel prize candidate for literature in 1984.
Age of Ages
Today
I arrived
From the womb of Mother
To the dusts of the worlds
And the age of this earth
Is the lyre of my breath.
This grand lyre respire to the air
The dirge of all martyrs of blood and skin
On the bosom of broken hearted Mother earth.
O Mother Earth!
You know:
This tower of slaves
Is loaded by fingerprints, footsteps and sighs
You know, it is leaned to the side
Still reaching out for the moon
Like long ago in Babylon!
I bowed down
And I was slain
I prayed with open palms
And I was deposed.
O Mother Earth:
Ashes and dusts are alien to the depth of your blues
To the hidden pearl of the seas.
Tell me now!
Let me know this hour!
What will be left?
O you!
O you!
Standing still, ruled back
Like snakes,
Over the chilled smell of your skin!
You have no arch, you have no flute,
There is no one to sing you dance
And there is no one to watch your dance!
Then Unfold!
Unfold!
O brothers, O sisters of the other side!
The snake is not sitting on a treasury,
It rules around your neck,
It rules around Mother’s heart,
It rules around our waists.
It is the naked death in his usual disguise.
O brothers, O sisters!
Remember the winged migration!
Remember the winged migration for dignity and faith
O Mother!
I know you will say again No
To the migration of dignity and faith!
Today
I arrived
From the womb of Mother
To the dusts of the worlds
And the age of this earth
Is the lyre of my breath.
Children of The Depths
They thrive
In the town of no street
In the stale web of dead-end lanes
In the bath of smoke, drug and pain
Talisman in the pocket and stones in hands
The children of the depths
The children of the depths
They thrive.
The cruel swamp of fate in front
The curse of drained fathers on their back
Ears filled with their tired mothers’ blame
A void of hope and future in fists
The children of the depths
The children of the depths
They thrive.
They flourish
In the forest of no spring
On the trees of no yield
The children of the depths
The children of the depths
They chant with a bleeding throat
They hold a long invincible flag in their hands
The children of the depths
The Kaveh* of the depths
Kaveh is a mythical figure in Iranian mythology who leads a popular uprising against a ruthless foreign ruler
The Martyr
(1)
Look how vast
his sheltering shade
spreads on the earth
with humility
and with glory!
His hands
alike branches of
the sacred tree life
glows with the light of love.
His fearless revolt
his far reach revlot
burned the gates of Hell
shook the walls of the Hell.
Not from cold lame of the razor blades
Or even poisoned swords
His death lands on his shoulders
from his smoky cloud of sorrow
running behind him for a while.
And that fortress of might
his heart
his hear whose key
th cadid verse of amity
collapses on itself
and yet not ot its back.
(2)
In the era of forceful negation of love
folded to one with his captive voice,
he such became, himself,
The Anthem of Love.
And he such became
he such became, himself,
The Elegy of Love.
(3)
Look how chaste
Look how vast
he streams on the earth
with humility and with glory!
And he such engraves
the effigy of nobility and of truth
on the heart the rocks!
Look how pure he fades away in the seas
with humility and with glory!
And loom how gracious he kneels in front of your thighs
with humility and with glory!
Look!
His death was the birthday of so very many knights.
Listen, If You Please!
(1)
The bad year,
The sad year,
The windy year,
The tearful year,
The year of overwhelming doubts.
The year that days were running too long
and the patience was falling too short.
The year that pride,
the year that the sense of pride,
begged at its knees.
The year of plight
The lowly year
The year of sorrow
The year when Poury cried
The year of Morteza’s blood
The resigning leap year...
(2)
Life is not a trap.
Love is not a trap.
Not even death has ever been a trap
For the lost beloveds fly free,
Free and pure…
(3)
I found my love in the bad year,
the sad year,
who repeats:
“Do not give in!”
I found my hope in the sea of despair
My moonlight in the dark night
My love in the year of plight
And exactly when
I was about to turn into ash
I went on fire.
Life was spiteful to me
I have just smiled.
The earth was cruel to me
I lay on the ground.
For I thought life is not dark,
And the earth is neat.
I was bad
But I was not evil
I escaped from evil
The world cursed me
And then the bad year, the sad year arrived:
The year the Poury cried
The year of Morteza’s blood
The year of darkness.
And I found the star,
I found the beauty
I found the good
And I bloomed.
You are fine
And it is a confession.
I have confessed and cried,
Now I confess and smile.
For I thought the first and the last
The dark and the light
Always merge…
(4)
You are fine
And I was not evil.
I found you and my might, my words, may mass, my thoughts
All turned into poem.
The stones turned into poem,
the evil turned into verse,
And the verse turned into beauty.
So the heavens sang, the birds sang,
The water danced.
And I asked you:
“Be my small sparrow and I become
in you return at the spring, a blossomed tree.”
The snow melted, the flowers danced.
The sun smiled.
And I watched, I changed
I confessed:
“You are good, and the bad year, the sad year
is gone.”
You smiled
And I came back to life.
(5)
I want to be good,
I want to be you!
That is why I could confess.
Listen!
Stay with me, if you please!
Source: http://www.ahmadshamlou.com/
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