In Vain
I don't want to open my mouth, what can I sing
I am despised these days — so what if I sing or not
What can I say of honey when it tastes like poison on my tongue
I curse the brutal fist that smashed my mouth
There is no one in the world I can rely on
So what if I cry, I laugh, I die, I linger
Alone in this corner with only defeat and regret
I was born in vain — my tongue is sealed shut
I know it is spring, my heart, a time of celebration
But I am a clipped wing, I can't fly
Though I havebeen silent for some time, I remember the song
I pull the words from my heart in an endless whisper
Celebrate that day when I will break from this miserable cage
and emerge, drunkenly singing
I am not that weak willow tree that trembles in the wind
I am an Afghan girl, and so I howl
Dalvae 1378 / Taurus 1999
Bent
I want to guide my poems upright
but the reach of the city's ceilings
is low and arched
There isn't even a crack
to push through
So, prudently, poems
have fallen asleep
hunched over
There is no vigilant hand
to break through
these domes
No one will ever see
the limits of their thoughts
Here you live bent
and you die bent
Sunbala 1382 / Virgo 2003
Prison
In this house of silence
there is no one left — the heart gets used to its song
The smell of smoke drifts from her burnt garden
where her grand cypresses wait for the earthquake
that will bring their heads to earth
How tragic that her beginning has come to an end
Anyone who has feathers and the strength
flees in an instant — she spreads her wings
and shoots from this nameless place like a bullet
The rare thrill of her flight is satisfying
She who doesn't find the strength to fly
suffers, prone. in a corner of ruins
Where did the friend who told her stories go?
In this house of silence
hopes die from waiting
saplings die even in spring
In every face you see
a person, broken, fed up with the tedium of days
Even the sunrise is solemn with its dark fate
You have to escape
from this cursed house of silence
to a city of far and invisible horizons
where there is the clamor of life
If you have no wings
go on foot
If you have no legs, leap into the dark
You must plunge into the sea
You must ask the wind
On any path that can sway away from this prison
you have to escape
you have to escape
Dalvae 1379 / Aquarius 2001
___________________
NADIA ANJUMAN
Smoke Drifts
translated from Persian by Diana Arterian, Marina Omar
World Poetry, 2025
