If you are looking for me,I am beyond nowhere. Beyond nowhere there is a placewhere all messages disperse in the veins of the sky,bringing news of the blossomingof all the remote gardens in the far corners of the world. The ground bears light hoofprints of dainty horsesclimbing the poppy-thick hills. Beyond nowhere there is a… Continue reading Sohrab Sepehri
My eyes grew old peering into the distance,Till finally they believed me that lifeWas an imaginary colour upon the face of a dream. —Sohrab Sepehri, from “Ruin” Sohrab Sepehri: A selection of poems from The Eight Books. Balboa Press, 2013
Somewhere between ‘I love you’ and ‘but’is mankind, a giant loneliness strollingthrough an even greater loneliness. — Negar Emrani (trans. Kaveh Akbar), “Somewhere Between the World and the Mirror,” published in Asymptote (April 2017) (via bostonpoetryslam)
Life is perhaps lighting up a cigarettein the narcotic repose between two love-makingsor the absent gaze of a passerbywho takes off his hat to another passerbywith a meaningless smile and a good morning — Forough Farrokhzad, from “Another Birth,” Another Birth: Selected Poems. (Zabankadeh Publications 2001)
Life is perhaps lighting up a cigarettein the narcotic repose between two love-makingsor the absent gaze of a passerbywho takes off his hat to another passerbywith a meaningless smile and a good morning — Forough Farrokhzad, from “Another Birth,” Another Birth and Other Poems. (Mage Publishers; Updated and REV ed. edition March 24, 2010)Forough Farrokhzad
Our lives pass from us like the wind, and why Should wise men grieve to know that they must die? The Judas blossom fades, the lovely face Of light is dimmed, and darkness takes its place. ― Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. (Penguin Classics; Deluxe edition February 27, 2007)
Somewhere between ‘I love you’ and ‘but’ is mankind, a giant loneliness strolling through an even greater loneliness. — Negar Emrani, from “Somewhere Between the World and the Mirror,” (trans. Kaveh Akbar) “Three Poems,” Asymptote Journal
In a room as big as loneliness my heart which is as big as love looks at the simple pretexts of its happiness at the beautiful decay of flowers in the vase at the sapling you planted in our garden and the song of canaries which sing to the size of a window. — Forough… Continue reading Forough Farrokhzad
I know that silence is silent because of me but I miss you and I push away my words so I can see you. — Shams Langeroodi, from “Untitled,” The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and its Exiles, edited by Sholeh Wolpe (Michigan State University Press, 2012)
There are stories which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker. — Sadegh Hedayat, The Blind Owl (Grove Press, 1994)
The Vale of Soul-Making 