The Fifth Loner
Beginning in the eyes
dreams end up at soles of feet.
The river is yet without a bridge.
For the earth is to become a path, a route,
centuries, a journey must endure.
Racing with water and wind
time overtakes me
and I, the lone
traveler of earth,
lagging way behind you,
holding close, the
left-overs of life,
from the farthest edge
of my expanse
wait for the universe to shrink.
They clay-lamp's flame
frightens the ghost of night.
The sky-canopy is too small;
the light more abundant than my heart.
But drams have a life, longer than all distances.
In seasons divine,
when stars, like flowers will bloom
and around sun-fire will hover, butterflies,
your moon-face will appear
through branches of eternal dusk.
If you'll have the strength
to endure and wait,
then, with a new arrangement of elements,
I'll come for you ….!
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1994.
Translated from the original Urdu into English by Yasmeen Hameed.
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poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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The Fifth Loner
Starting in the eyes, the dreams
end underfoot,
there the river lies still without the bridge.
It'd take centuries to build the muddy path
walking with the air and wind;
Time goes beyond me
And I am the solitary voyager
far behind you;
Holding on to the residual stores
of my life,
I wait for the moment standing
on the farthest point of the expansion
when the universe shrinks back.
The shadow of the night gets
terrified seeing the pointed
flame of the lamp.
The pavilion of the sky looks small, and
the light is more abundant than my heart.
But, the distances
are not longer than the
circles of the dreams;
In the divine seasons
when the stars blossom
like flowers; and
the butterflies flit around
the sun-fire, then
your moon like phizog
will appear on the
branches of the eternal dusk
If you have the spirit
to last and wait,
then, with a new pact
of the rudiments
I will come for you!
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1994.
Translated from Urdu into English by Bina Biswas
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poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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A Dream Fallen Out Of Sleep
Outside the abode of our sleep
Somewhere a dream burns
Somewhere tears sparkle
Somewhere a moon smoulders
Outside the abode of our sleep
Somewhere the sun rises
Somewhere the black beauty - night
Street walks
Somewhere an earthen lamp
Hides behind a facade
Outside the abode or our sleep
Somewhere bright birds flutter
Somewhere beasts of prey prowl
Somewhere there's a memory - forest
A desert there is - and a watershed
Somewhere a snowscape burns
Outside the abode of our sleep
Somewhere there's a cloud-burst
Eyes stare in longing
Somewhere in the ocean of the heart
Someone burns to a dry death
Outside the abode of our sleep
Somewhere two flowers bloom
Somewhere we see each other every day
Somewhere the wounds are sutured
Outside the abode of our sleep
Somewhere a roof is lit up
A door is afire
Somewhere hidden
Somewhere revealed
Outside the abode of our sleep
A dream burns.
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1979.
Translated from Urdu into English by Dr. Satyapal Anand
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A Change Of Scene Is But A Moment's Respite
In the sunbathed expanse of the sky
Birds were on the wing
Now lost in the quaint net
Of limetless space
In sky-lakes, azure blue,
They can't be seen.
Clouds kiss the hillock's lips
Then dance in ecstasy
Move around from valley to valley
Suddenly slipping from steep precipices
A comely face like a silken handkerchief
Gets soaked somewhere
In the rain of tears.
My dreams take a plunge
From the open window
And land
In the hands of the kids playing
In the eyes of the balloon seller
In the heart of the Gypsy girl
Hawking her wares - earthen toys.
The wind blows them away in a moment.
A change of scene is but a moment's respite
To look long and longingly
With a deep gaze of adoration
Is a palpable loss.
Whole life spans are spent
In slow motion.
Poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1980.
Translated from the original Urdu into English by Satyapal Anand.
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Windows
Windows open vistas for us
Windows - of hearts, of minds or of eyes
Windows - which might open outward
Or inward
They bring the light on the other end to this end.
Windows converse
They open the alphabetical locks of our lips
When night weaves nets of darkness on windows
Life-spans speak out in whispers from abysses of pain
Windows then perforce remain silent
Suffer days of tongue-tied laws
Nights of oppression
And epochs of tyranny
Windows are self same stories of dreams
Of centuries
Mute testimony of chasms
Court yards and ruined houses
Evidence of rusted eons rattling with exhaustion
in tyrant time's primordium continuity
Windows have the heart of a woman
They open their body's wings of each clime
With a little waft of wind
With fragrance, sunlight, rain or moon beams.
They blow away paper-light images
And waste away life in uncharted desires.
When butterflies fly in front of windows
Eyes glued to window panes become tearful
With noontide memories.
Evenings look forward to a wayfarer passing by
When they're covered with climbers
holding forth red and white flowers
They fill closed fists with the touch of fire-flies.
Windows often insist on being kept open
They're surprised to watch cloud, birds
And the blue sky's expanse
If they're kept shut
They're afraid of the life breath of
Walls and rooms getting strangulated.
They're afraid of dwellers forsaking their houses
They also feel life's desertion
They also feel despondent
Windows are human beings!
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir
Translated from the original Urdu into English by Satyapal Anand.
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Lighthouse
Tell me, O moisture
Halted in the eternity of my eyes
Which stagnant epoch has confined you!
God weeps rain
On some land of pain
Why only one dropp of my tear
Has stuck on His lashes.
Tell me, O breeze of shores
The name of the city
In which she waits for me
Who told me in a drenched voyage
love is an island, grief the sail!
Tell me the releaving spell
I will perform the ritual
Of departing
And will meet her
In long rows of stony pillars
I will hold her in my arms
And will hand over her
Odysseys of the lands
In exchange for only one kiss!
Tell me, O sign of light
Whether the images of peak-less
Rocks beneath the water
Are abstraction of olden centuries
Lying on the verge of eternity
Or sculptures of unreflected
Shrieks of slaves
Rowing in a fable!
Tell me, O magical bird
Flying over the waning immensity of time
Where is she
Whose memories have
Anchored the mast of ancient voices
In my heart.
Tell me, O star on land
Why travellers
Dream about you?
Poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1994
Translated from the original Urdu into English by Parveen Tahir
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The Door Of No Return
Those who passed from this door
Were negroes
With centuries-old ethos permeating
Their swarthy bodies.
This door
(The door of no return)
Opening on to an ocean
Was the gateway to
The Brave New World of slavery.
A return journey
Was only a scintillating dream
Reflected in the eyes of
The multitude of skeleton-like bodies
Aboard the sea-going vessels.
This door
On the shore
Now admits the white masters
Who pass with reverence
Recalling the bygone ages of their tyranny
But perchance forget
that Africa
Will shine like the rising sun of the
Brave New World.
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1995.
Translated from Urdu into English by Dr. Satyapal Anand.
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poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Dreams Lost In Water
No distance ever separates
Dreams and desires
No mirror ever dissolves
Reflection and water
In one's eye
What graph would you make
Of lines of thought?
The triangle of pain
Is without any angle
Countless races
Have dreams alike
But sleep and night-watch
Are never the same!
Names are forgotten
Codes alone come to mind
In nuclear setups
Dreams of radiant generations
Are smitten
By atomic explosions
Cities sink
Nuclei dissipate
Orbits dwindle
What remains
Are terra and sol
In the dance of death
God is a casualty.
A moment of brightness
In a light year
Breaking into smithereens
In a million eons
An accident - yes
But not an event
History is continuity
Broken once
Telescopic eyes, tired out, give up
Their distance watching
Lost planets
Bygone epoches
Have no interposition.
Who will look for
Flowers
In spring-fresh hands
Of tiny tots?
Who will see
Dreams
In eyes-yours and mine
In centuries to be?
No one is sure
Of things lost in water!
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1980.
Translated from Urdu to English by Dr. Satyapal Anand and from English to Spanish by Dr. Teresinka Pereira.
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See, If You Can......
See, if you can really see
The wilderness of history
The paths leading to Macedonia are dust-engulfed
' Alexanders of Fate' have vanished
The reverbrating footfalls
Around the nail of Konya
Are now reduced to lifeless echoes of a timeless moment
No dervish has stamina left in his spinning heel
Brightly lit up streaks have dimmed
Serial dances have all been obliterated
Eagles swoop down over Baghdad
The sharp edge of Damascus weapons are now blunt
See, if you can really see
The depths of your dreams
Have growing forests of poison-besmeared eyes
In place of a throbbing heart
Striped snakes of the New World
Now live in the ancient edifices
resting on pillars of Corinth
And the ancient iron boxes of secret treasures
kept in the magic cave
Have no red coins left
Only dollars!
See, if you can.........
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1990.
Translated from the original Urdu into English by Dr. Satyapal Anand.
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No Life Span For Love And Dreams
We're aware
We're aware that between us there's
A haze of ignorance
Our steps but tread the path of our search
But can't see their goal
Much more exquisite and radiant
Than my poems is your inner self
And my eye-glasses are getting thicker every day
Do you know
Why poems and stories become wordless
Trying to poetise us?
They want to know our birth date
The place we were born
And our present age.
What do they know?
Dreams are neither born
Nor ever they die
No register enters their birth statistics
I just don't know
At what point of time did you learn to take your first steps
Holding the dream's little finger
I indeed am that dream
Which no one has never seen
I had died verily the same day
When my father had kicked my mother on her stomach
But I continued to grow inside my grave
Grew so much that
My mother could see me without bending
Once I dropped my camera and broke it
While taking some body's picture
Only then I came to know
Why dreams become utterly black in daylight
Why it's important to have
a dark liquid to expose them
I didn't know that light can be seen only in darkness
We're indeed not what we seem to be
There's some one else in our place
Wearing our costume
Flowing water has no shape
Shapes are but in our eyes
And to see a dream
One doesn't need sleep - but eyes
From protozoan to a human being
The sleep of bilions of evolutionary years
Is but an interval for opening his eyes
Love is the intervening space between life and death
And we use the yardstick of one life span to measure it
And go through a mesquerade of living
But love has no life span
It prevails from an unknown beginning
To an unknown end
At whatever point in time we find it
We fix our separate limits
And then define it with names and relationships
Greater indeed is melancholy than our knowledge and experience
Let it expand
How could one express in words
All that colours, flowers and butterflies convey
There's no other better medium of communication
Than silence to talk to birds, plants and nice people
How do we know - we might simply be
Going through the awakening process
From a dream greater than ourselves
And someone - with his universal eye might be watching us
Do not disturb the soul of God
While it is dreaming.
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1994.
Translated from the original Urdu into English by Satyapal Anand.
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poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Song Of The Dark
When it rains darkness
we beg refuge in an iridescent dream, and
we don't know that
after having a plunge into the colours of the painter
how does the night change into blue?
The night flees hearing the soft footsteps of light;
rushes into the nooks and corners -
spreads to the hollow spaces;
a few holes pierce the souls
travelling through those
it moves to another direction -
Is that path dark too?
Is there a bottomless
crater of darkness
that moves from one illusion of light
to another?
Does there too
the darkness draw
delight the way
we draw pleasure from our
wanton sadness? And
overflow with our
iniquity; and
lose all residual words
in the entwining net of great verses.
Wounds in the souls
go deeper each moment; and
life in between the day and night
like crawling and swaying shadows -
Moves from one direction to the other;
second to the third,
third to the fourth,
fourth to the fifth; and then
to the whole universe; and
like this, onto a limitless direction.
Life keeps crawling on the knees silently
from one lair to the other;
from one corner of the universe to
the other corner -
Even the souls start sobbing
and there at the God's column-less
palaces;
darkness looms over the sparkling stars;
waiting for the chance to assault, and
reaches those lands where
hearts cultivate
and minds blossom in flowers!
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,2008.
Translated from Urdu into English by Dr.Bina Biswas
Copyright(C) Naseer Ahmed Nasir, All Rights Reserved.
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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I Had Seen The Ultimate Poetry
With grandpa
while working in the fields
by a forest along the bank of a
rain-wet river;
while the cattle grazed in the meadow,
I, touching the gooseberry bushes, and
sitting under the shade of the
acacia;
once became high while eating up
pickle and roti, and
while drinking water from the
low lying tap
I saw poetry
at the fringe, in her real image
The beginning was not known then
not even now -
but the end could be seen
with the naked eye;
in all starkness of the reality
from the head to the toe
The fusion of life and death was
not a smaller intoxication;
I'd learned silence from
grandpa's words, and
from the poeticized creation of god,
the echoes of the songs of the sky
that were coming out from deep of the earth!
Aristotle and Neruda still had
not awakened in me;
only there was grandpa
and only was I -
There were terrains of land, and
there were breeze and clouds
And was a sudden shower of rains,
and in the midst of all these
there was a random loneliness
that since then
hanging around in the same pose -
the pose that
it'd struck in the frame of the universe.
Just our perspectives have changed
grandpa has slept forever, and,
I while away from my
ancestors' fading graveyard;
hold the hand of my grandson, and
run in a nearby park-
taking small footsteps like him
While poetry sings ceaselessly
swaying in a swing
in a play land!
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir
Translated from Urdu into English by Bina Biswas
Copyright (C) Naseer Ahmed Nasir. All rights reserved.
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Dreams Are Faceless
Dreams are but faceless
Eyes alone are a visible feature
And eyes indeed
Have a quaint crowd
Of faces;
Dreams lose their way in it.
Repentant sorrow
Of compromises
Renders dry and seer
Inner seasons of good cheer
Extinguishes flames of
Soulful sentiments
Covers with an icesheet
Of sad forebodings
All scenes of love - and loveliness!
Winds' reflections sink
In shallow waters.
It's soul's sickness
That draws
Lines of unfamiliarity
On bodies' wooden slates
(Destroying their intimacy)
Painting lips with a smile
Doesn't sweeten the taste of sorrows.
How long will you dread the sand
sitting on the shore
Of affliction?
A fistful of sand
Doesn't do either
Neither does it flatten up the ocean
Nor soak away
The glittering waters of the eyes!
Do you know?
It's wise not to wake up
While sleepwalking!
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1992.
Translated from Urdu into English by Dr. Satyapal Anand.
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Spectrogram Of A Pictorial Poem
The walls have come out of doors
Narrows are the passages, many are the footprints
On the steep rock where the sun lies half reclined
Jumping over one's shadow, falling headlong
Is the ultimate truth, nothing new about it
Dreaming some old dream
Eyes know not how much water has come out
Of their oceanic depths.
It is easy to cross a river
but how difficult it is to find a foothold on its banks.
Passing through the vicinity of human settlements
the pathways of history meander through
Fields, meadows, and vineyards and disappear
in the rise and fall of women.
Before the new crops come in
Weather keeps on changing.
Profound thoughts are for the Elect
and death for all!
Failure to compose a poem
is not the tragedy of the poet
when life is face to face with perpetual death
Death is reduced to a worn out cliché
Watering of the bygone days
yields nothing but heartrending toil.
Before we are discovered in our state of loneliness
from some star beyond our ken
Come! Let's scramble through the portals of the
Decaying buildings manned by enslaved
Souls, whose bodies are wrapped in dust
and bones have turned brittle
And just a gesture from the hand
Will bring them down to their feet.
The birds of clouds
and fluffs of rains
are not far away from the reach of the weather satellite.
Poem by: Naseer Ahmed Nasir,1994.
Translated from Urdu into English by Prof. Ghulam Gilani Asghar.
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A purgatory of foggy dreams
A memory lingers on familiar lanes
An ache awakens on old pathways
A hue unique in the buds
A flower aloof in a vase
A melody in foliage drenched
A vine entwined around a column
A dawn lights up from its source
An eventide suspends time and space
A captive moon in the pane
A night so deep and intense
A desolate spirit, holes in its being
A hand on a dagger rests
An assault on the earth made
A mantle green on barren field
A garland of arms, touch of rose
A banyan of centuries decayed
A purgatory of foggy dreams
An era of waking sleep
It's a legend of a life time
Despair and grief in joy abides!
Translated into English by Mamta Agarwal
Copyright (C) Naseer Ahmed Nasir All Rights Reserved
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Whirling Death
I am maddened by the
Death-knock.
In a frenzy I run,
for the many chores to be done...
From the stillness of mountains and lakes
to hear ancient songs,
to unravel mysteries of tales from the past,
of trees to enquire after
the business of growth,
to watch the ever-changing
shapes of clouds,
through sweet-voiced, goodly birds
seek the source of divine fruits,
touch flowers of a blushing creeper,
make conversation
with doorways and walls.
So many visitors still wait;
a long list of unseen vistas
beheld in the eyes, pounds
in the veins,
exploding them any moment,
but I am busy,
in a flurry to carry out the chores...
The ocean calls,
islands and coastlines
for aeons have longed for me.
They haunt me, the fishermen
singing songs as they return
to their abodes;
some day I'll pay them a visit...
Enchanting lands
restively wait
to reveal their many treasures;
paths are not unknown to me,
in the old wooden trunk, lie safe
the maps;
I can also discern the melody of gods,
but I am busy...
So much to be done for the children.
Books and notebooks,
school uniforms, new bags,
toys, bats and rackets
and so much more that is
yet unsaid,
will make them happy
if I buy for them,
but I am busy,
have to see through so many chores...
Faster now, blood rushes
through the veins;
life is possessed by the frenzy of Death.
Busy I am,
hurriedly scribbling poem after poem,
maddened by the Death-knock.
(Translated from the original Urdu into English by Yasmeen Hameed)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Charioteer Has Gone To Sleep
The charioteer has gone to sleep
Ovecome by fatigue of wearisome ways
Unaware of where he is
All that's evident
Is his continuous journey
On unmarked, worn-out way
In his wooden wagonette
From the beginning of time
To the end of time
When the wagonette
Creaks even with a small bump
Wrapped up in millions of folds
Of ragged shabbiness
Each living being is startled
The charioteer dreams
He has lost himself in strange worlds
Comfortable climes
Riding a golden chariot
And holding the princess's hand
The charioteer has gone to sleep
(Translated from the original Urdu by Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Living Trophies
On their way to school
Carrying dreams of future
In their book bags
Kids grow into old man
Their prattle
Like tiny butterflies
Continue to live.
Of dreams and their interpretations
Of brightly lit hands
And happy lines of fate
Folks seperate from us
Their memories
Continue to live.
In the eve-time loneliness
In the head-splitting deep gaze
Like withering dreams
Scenes get blurred
Glued to the path - eyes
Continue to live.
In the empty spaces of life
In the courtyards of
Waning sunlight
Holding medals of valour
And defeats
Mothers of slain war heroes
Continue to live.
Poets
Writing on scraps die
Their poems
Continue to live.
(Translated from the original Urdu by Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Continuity
Winds dance
Black clouds gather
Trace songs of blue rains
On wooden tablets of the golden sun
In azure limitlessness of the sky.
Birds remember the earth
Through signs
Seas come to an end
On shores
Somewhere whole isles
Sink in tear drops.
Hark, O children
For stories get interrupted
If you're inattentive.
(Translated from the original Urdu by Dr.Satyapal Anand and from English to Spanish by Dr. Teresinka Pereira)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Where Did You See Her?
Have you ever ventured
Beyond the dreams
Where the sulking night
Angry with her lovers, the moon and the stars
Dabs her bare body with ashes
And dances around a bonfire?
Have you ever peeped behind eyelashes
Into tired blue eyes
Where a whole world of woe
Swims in spaces unfathomed?
Have you ever spent a day
Under the greenwood trees
Erect sentry-like on each side of the road
Where the sun struggles
To find its way?
Have you ever asked
A wayfarer, a stranger
The directions to the house
Of the one
Whose waning footprints
The winds kiss
Wandering about from town to town?
(Translated from the original Urdu by Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Glass House
Hither night falls, but
brings no dreams
sunshine advances, but
kindles no one
flowers bloom, but
winds do not chant.
(Translated by Aiman Rathore)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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