Soul

Hymn To Life
The hair falling on your forehead
suddenly lifted.
Suddenly something stirred on the ground.
The trees are whispering
in the dark.
Your bare arms will be cold.
Far off
where we can't see,
the moon must be rising.
It hasn't reached us yet,
slipping through the leaves
to light up your shoulder.
But I know
a wind comes up with the moon.
The trees are whispering.
Your bare arms will be cold.
From above,
from the branches lost in the dark,
something dropped at your feet.
You moved closer to me.
Under my hand your bare flesh is like the fuzzy skin of a fruit.
Neither a song of the heart nor "common sense"--
before the trees, birds, and insects,
my hand on my wife's flesh
is thinking.
Tonight my hand
can't read or write.
Neither loving nor unloving...
It's the tongue of a leopard at a spring,
a grape leaf,
a wolf's paw.
To move, breathe, eat, drink.
My hand is like a seed
splitting open underground.
Neither a song of the heart nor "common sense,"
neither loving nor unloving.
My hand thinking on my wife's flesh
is the hand of the first man.
Like a root that finds water underground,
it says to me:
"To eat, drink, cold, hot, struggle, smell, color--
not to live in order to die
but to die to live..."
And now
as red female hair blows across my face,
as something stirs on the ground,
as the trees whisper in the dark,
and as the moon rises far off
where we can't see,


my hand on my wife's flesh
before the trees, birds, and insects,
I want the right of life,
of the leopard at the spring, of the seed splitting open--
I want the right of the first man.
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk ()

Angina Pectoris
If half my heart is here, doctor,
the other half is in China
with the army flowing
toward the Yellow River.
And, every morning, doctor,
every morning at sunrise my heart
is shot in Greece.
And every night,c doctor,
when the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted,
my heart stops at a run-down old house
in Istanbul.
And then after ten years
all i have to offer my poor people
is this apple in my hand, doctor,
one read apple:
my heart.
And that, doctor, that is the reason
for this angina pectoris--
not nicotine, prison, or arteriosclerosis.
I look at the night through the bars,
and despite the weight on my chest
my heart still beats with the most distant stars.
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk ()

A Spring Piece Left In The Middle
Taut, thick fingers punch
the teeth of my typewriter.
Three words are down on paper
in capitals:
SPRING
SPRING
SPRING...
And me -- poet, proofreader,
the man who's forced to read
two thousand bad lines
every day
for two liras--
why,
since spring
has come, am I
still sitting here
like a ragged
black chair?
My head puts on its cap by itself,
I fly out of the printer's,
I'm on the street.
The lead dirt of the composing room
on my face,
seventy-five cents in my pocket.
SPRING IN THE AIR...
In the barbershops
they're powdering
the sallow cheeks
of the pariah of Publishers Row.
And in the store windows
three-color bookcovers
flash like sunstruck mirrors.
But me,
I don't have even a book of ABC's
that lives on this street
and carries my name on its door!
But what the hell...
I don't look back,
the lead dirt of the composing room
on my face,
seventy-five cents in my pocket,
SPRING IN THE AIR...
*
The piece got left in the middle.
It rained and swamped the lines.
But oh! what I would have written...
The starving writer sitting on his three-thousand-page
three-volume manuscript
wouldn't stare at the window of the kebab joint


but with his shining eyes would take
the Armenian bookseller's dark plump daughter by storm...
The sea would start smelling sweet.
Spring would rear up
like a sweating red mare
and, leaping onto its bare back,
I'd ride it
into the water.
Then
my typewriter would follow me
every step of the way.
I'd say:
"Oh, don't do it!
Leave me alone for an hour..."
then
my head-my hair failing out--
would shout into the distance:
"I AM IN LOVE..."
*
I'm twenty-seven,
she's seventeen.
"Blind Cupid,
lame Cupid,
both blind and lame Cupid
said, Love this girl,"
I was going to write;
I couldn't say it
but still can!
But if
it rained,
if the lines I wrote got swamped,
if I have twenty-five cents left in my pocket,
what the hell...
Hey, spring is here spring is here spring
spring is here!
My blood is budding inside me!
and April
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk ()

These Divine Verses

These divine verses,
As I write
Are
The hallowed revelations
Descending
From on high
The sound of the scribe's pen
In the stillness of the night is indeed
The heavenly muse
Uttering her immortal words

The dropp dies in the river

The dropp dies in the riverof its joy

Pain goes so far it cures itself
In the spring after the heavy rain the cloud disappears
That was nothing but tears

In the spring the mirror turns green
holding a miracle
Change the shining wind

The rose led us to our eyes
Let whatever is be open.
[Translated by W. S. Merwin and Aijaz Ahmed]

No Hope

I am left with no hope at all,
No possibility to reach my goal,


The Day of my death is fixed,
I am so very anxious that I can not sleep all night.


Though I know the reward of obedience and worship,
But I have no tendency for it.


I am silent for a certain reason,
Otherwise I can convince you with my words,


Why I shouldn't cry,
For when I don't, she asks about me,


My heart is burning, though you cannot see the spot,
But O my doctor, can't you smell my heart burn?


I have reached to a certain state,
From where even I cannot find myself.


I am dying (Waiting anxiously) for my death,
I don't know where the hell my death has gone.


With what face you will go to Ka'ba, O! Ghalib,
You should be ashamed of yourself while thinking to go there.

Let the ascetics sing of the garden of Paradise --

Let the ascetics sing of the garden of Paradise --
We who dwell in the true ecstasy can forget their vase-tamed bouquet.


In our hall of mirrors, the map of the one Face appears
As the sun's splendor would spangle a world made of dew.


Hidden in this image is also its end,
As peasants' lives harbor revolt and unthreshed corn sparks with fire.


Hidden in my silence are a thousand abandoned longings:
My words the darkened oil lamp on a stranger's unspeaking grave.


Ghalib, the road of change is before you always:
The only line stitching this world's scattered parts.

It is not Love it is Madness

(You say) It is not love, it is madness
My madness may be the cause of your fame
Sever not my relationship with you
If nothing then be my enemy
What is the meaning of notoriety in meeting me
If not in public court meet me alone
I am not my own enemy
So what if the stranger is in love with you
Whatever you are, it is due to your own being
If this not known then it is ignorance
Life though fleets like a lightening flash
Yet it is abundant Time to be in love
I do not want debate on the sustenance of love
Be it not love but another dilemma
Give something O biased One
At least the sanction to cry and plea
I will perpetuate the rituals
Even if cruelty be your habit
Teasing and cajoling the beloved cannot leave 'Asad'
Even if there is no union and only the desire remains

In Her Every Indication

Although in her every indication, the aim is something else
If she shows her affection(with me) , then different suspicion arises


Oh Lord, 'they' have not understood, nor will [they] understand, my speech
Give 'them' another heart, if you don't give me a different tongue


Does that glance of coquetry have a connection with the eyebrow?
It is certainly an arrow- perhaps it has a different bow


If you're in the city, then what grief do I have? when we get up
I will go and bring back from the bazaar a different heart and life


Although [I /we] became quick-handed / deft in idol-breaking
If I am alive, then in my path there will be many heavy-stones


The blood of the liver is in turmoil—or I would have wept to my heart's content
If I had had a number of different pure-blood-scattering eyes


I will die [of love] for that voice, although my head may fly off!
But let her keep saying to the executioner,'Yes, more/another! '


People are deceived about the world-{heating/burning} sun
Every day I show one different hidden scar/wound


There are many good poets in this world.
But it is said that Ghalib is in a league of his own.

He was, when it was aught

He was, when it was aught
He would still be, even if it might have been naught
Drowned I am in my ego
What would have happened if 'I' was not
Laden with distraught and feeling apathetic
do I have to worry about the head being severed
If it did not severe from the body
The head would have simply reposed on the lap
It has been ages that 'Ghalib' died
Yet the memories linger on
His saying this on every occasion
If it was 'like this' then what it would be!

Ghazal


I wish to go and dwell,
In such a place,
Where there's no one else.
No one to understand my speech,
No one around to talk with,
There, I want to reach.


I wish to build,
One such house,
Without a door to enter,
Without the boundary walls,
Thus there will be no neighbours,
And there will be no guard.


There will be no one thus,
To take care of me,
When I will fell ill.
And there will be no one,
To mourn or cry,
When I will die.

A Thousand Desires

Thousands of desires, each worth dying for...
Many of them I have realized...yet I yearn for more...


Why should my killer (lover) be afraid? No one will hold her responsible
For the blood which will continuously flow through my eyes all my life


We have heard about the dismissal of Adam from Heaven,
With a more humiliation, I am leaving the street on which you live...


Oh tyrant, your true personality will be known to all
If the curls of my hair slip through my turban!


But if someone wants to write her a letter, they can ask me,
Every morning I leave my house with my pen on my ear.


In that age, I turned to drinking (alcohol)
And then the time came when my entire world was occupied by alcohol


From whom I expected justice/praise for my weakness
Turned out to be more injured with the same cruel sword


When in love, there is little difference between life and death
We live by looking at the infidel who we are willing to die for


Put some pressure on your heart to remove that cruel arrow,
For if the arrow comes out, so will your heart...and your life.


For god's sake, don't lift the cover off any secrets you tyrant
The infidel might turn out to be my lover!


The preacher and the bar's entrance are way apart
Yet I saw him entering the bar as I was leaving!


Thousands of desires, each worth dying for...
>Many of them I have realized...yet I yearn for more

Touched by an Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Alone


Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

In this world of ours,
Yo no naka wa kutte hako shite nete okite
Sate sono ato wa shinuru bakari zo
In this world of ours,
We eat only to cast out,
Sleep only to wake,
And what comes after all that
Is simply to die at last.

Photography Extraordinary

The MilkandWater
School
Alas! she would not hear my prayer!
Yet it were rash to tear my hair;
Disfigured, I should be less fair.


She was unwise, I may say blind;
Once she was lovingly inclined;
Some circumstance has changed her mind.


The StrongMinded
or MatterofFact
School
Well! so my offer was no go!
She might do worse, I told her so;
She was a fool to answer "No".


However, things are as they stood;
Nor would I have her if I could,
For there are plenty more as good.


The Spasmodic or German School
Firebrands and Daggers! hope hath fled!
To atoms dash the doubly dead!
My brain is firemy
heart is lead!


Her soul is flint, and what am I?
Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye,
Nothingness is my destiny!

Phantasmagoria CANTO IV ( Hys Nouryture )

"OH, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea."


"That story is in print!" I cried.
"Don't say it's not, because
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!"
(The Ghost uneasily replied
He hardly thought it was).


"It's not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet
I almost think it is '
Three little Ghosteses' were set
'On posteses,' you know, and ate
Their 'buttered toasteses.'


"I have the book; so if you doubt it "
I turned to search the shelf.
"Don't stir!" he cried. "We'll do without it:
I now remember all about it;
I wrote the thing myself.


"It came out in a 'Monthly,' or
At least my agent said it did:
Some literary swell, who saw
It, thought it seemed adapted for
The Magazine he edited.


"My father was a Brownie, Sir;
My mother was a Fairy.
The notion had occurred to her,
The children would be happier,
If they were taught to vary.


"The notion soon became a craze;
And, when it once began, she
Brought us all out in different ways One
was a Pixy, two were Fays,
Another was a Banshee;


"The Fetch and Kelpie went to school
And gave a lot of trouble;
Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul,
And then two Trolls (which broke the rule),
A Goblin, and a Double


"(If that's a snuffbox
on the shelf,"
He added with a yawn,
"I'll take a pinch) next
came an Elf,
And then a Phantom (that's myself),



And last, a Leprechaun.


"One day, some Spectres chanced to call,
Dressed in the usual white:
I stood and watched them in the hall,
And couldn't make them out at all,
They seemed so strange a sight.


"I wondered what on earth they were,
That looked all head and sack;
But Mother told me not to stare,
And then she twitched me by the hair,
And punched me in the back.


"Since then I've often wished that I
Had been a Spectre born.
But what's the use?" (He heaved a sigh.)
"THEY are the ghostnobility,
And look on US with scorn.


"My phantomlife
was soon begun:
When I was barely six,
I went out with an older one And
just at first I thought it fun,
And learned a lot of tricks.


"I've haunted dungeons, castles, towers Wherever
I was sent:
I've often sat and howled for hours,
Drenched to the skin with driving showers,
Upon a battlement.


"It's quite oldfashioned
now to groan
When you begin to speak:
This is the newest thing in tone "
And here (it chilled me to the bone)
He gave an AWFUL squeak.


"Perhaps," he added, "to YOUR ear
That sounds an easy thing?
Try it yourself, my little dear!
It took ME something like a year,
With constant practising.


"And when you've learned to squeak, my man,
And caught the double sob,
You're pretty much where you began:
Just try and gibber if you can!
That's something LIKE a job!


"I'VE tried it, and can only say
I'm sure you couldn't do it, e



ven if you practised night and day,
Unless you have a turn that way,
And natural ingenuity.


"Shakspeare I think it is who treats
Of Ghosts, in days of old,
Who 'gibbered in the Roman streets,'
Dressed, if you recollect, in sheets They
must have found it cold.


"I've often spent ten pounds on stuff,
In dressing as a Double;
But, though it answers as a puff,
It never has effect enough
To make it worth the trouble.


"Long bills soon quenched the little thirst
I had for being funny.
The settingup
is always worst:
Such heaps of things you want at first,
One must be made of money!


"For instance, take a Haunted Tower,
With skull, crossbones,
and sheet;
Blue lights to burn (say) two an hour,
Condensing lens of extra power,
And set of chains complete:


"What with the things you have to hire The
fitting on the robe And
testing all the coloured fire The
outfit of itself would tire
The patience of a Job!


"And then they're so fastidious,
The HauntedHouse
Committee:
I've often known them make a fuss
Because a Ghost was French, or Russ,
Or even from the City!


"Some dialects are objected to For
one, the IRISH brogue is:
And then, for all you have to do,
One pound a week they offer you,
And find yourself in Bogies!

Dedication


Inscribed to a Dear Child:
In Memory of Golden Summer Hours
And Whispers of a Summer Sea


Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell.
Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem if you list, such hours a waste of life,
Empty of all delight!


Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
The heartlove
of a child!

Bessie's Song To Her Doll

Matilda Jane, you never look
At any toy or picturebook.
I show you pretty things in vain
You must be blind, Matilda Jane!


I ask you riddles, tell you tales,
But all our conversation fails.
You never answer me again
I fear you're dumb, Matilda Jane!


Matilda darling, when I call,
You never seem to hear at all.
I shout with all my might and main
But you're so deaf, Matilda Jane!


Matilda Jane, you needn't mind,
For, though you're deaf and dumb and blind,
There's some one loves you, it is plain
And that is me, Matilda Jane!

Trumpet Player

The Negro
With the trumpet at his lips
Has dark moons of weariness
Beneath his eyes
where the smoldering memory
of slave ships
Blazed to the crack of whips
about thighs

The negro
with the trumpet at his lips
has a head of vibrant hair
tamed down,
patent-leathered now
until it gleams
like jetwere
jet a crown

the music
from the trumpet at his lips
is honey
mixed with liquid fire
the rhythm
from the trumpet at his lips
is ecstasy
distilled from old desire-

Desire
that is longing for the moon
where the moonlight's but a spotlight
in his eyes,
desire
that is longing for the sea
where the sea's a bar-glass
sucker size

The Negro
with the trumpet at his lips
whose jacket
Has a fine one-button roll,
does not know
upon what riff the music slips

It's hypodermic needle
to his soul
but softly
as the tune comes from his throat
trouble
mellows to a golden note

To Artina

I will take you heart.
I will take your soul out of your body
As though I were God.
I will not be satisfied
With the touch of your hand
Nor the sweet of your lips alone.
I will take your heart for mine.
I will take your soul.
I will be God when it comes to you.

The Weary Blues

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway ....
He did a lazy sway ....
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan-"
Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."


Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more-"
I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

The Negro Mother

Children, I come back today
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
In order that the race might live and grow.
Look at my face -- dark as the night --
Yet shining like the sun with love's true light.
I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.
I am the woman who worked in the field
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.
I am the one who labored as a slave,
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave --
Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too.
No safety , no love, no respect was I due.


Three hundred years in the deepest South:
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .
God put a dream like steel in my soul.
Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.


Now, through my children, young and free,
I realized the blessing deed to me.
I couldn't read then. I couldn't write.
I had nothing, back there in the night.
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears,
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun,
But I had to keep on till my work was done:
I had to keep on! No stopping for me --
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother
Deep in my breast -- the Negro mother.
I had only hope then , but now through you,
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:
All you dark children in the world out there,
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow --
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my pass a road to the light
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
Stand like free men supporting my trust.
Believe in the right, let none push you back.
Remember the whip and the slaver's track.
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife
Still bar you the way, and deny you life --
But march ever forward, breaking down bars.
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers
Impel you forever up the great stairs --
For I will be with you till no white brother
Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother.

Still Here

been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,


Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me


Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!
I'm still here!