Climax Of A Long Story
She wrote me
On mud-walls
In colours delible
And then
Prayed for rain!
(1975, Translated By Dr. Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Archaeology
Paths
Winding their way
stop short at cave openings.
Words
Written on plaques
Bear witness to the unseen past
Crying themselves hoarse
In deserted towns
Crazy-like strike against the walls.
Far far away
Beyond the rim of lost civilizations
Silence suddenly rebounds
And reverberates.
(1975, Translated by Dr. Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Inside Domes
Desires are happy lyrics
Written on walls of sorrowful crying.
Paths are dreams
Of good days to come
But stay detached from destinations.
Lines are imprisoned
In circles.
So, keep walking on
Water is the end-all
Of journey in the desert.
Go, if you must
Following mirages
But carry oceans in your eyes.
Pass, if you must
In the forest of glass-encrusted silence
But keep stones of sound with you.
Live, if you must
Inside domes
But keep a door open!
(Translated by Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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A Proscribed Poster
Dreams
Insecticides sprayed
On stinking water in our streets.
Eyes of coming generations
Empty tins in our kitchens
Of dough, ghee and kerosene.
Dancer
Starvation dancing
In our courtyards.
Thirst
Our historical legacy.
Words
Prisoners of curricula
For you who read scripts.
We all
Prisoners of unseen dreams
For you who look for interpretations.
(1977, Translated by Dr. 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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The World Is Made For The Cunning
Children innocently ask:
Where do the animals' souls go when they are dead?
Does the fish-soul leave the ocean?
And do the birds
Simply turn into branches of a tree?
Childern do not make concepts
They can't conceptualize
The philosophy of
Evolution and transmigration of souls
They don't know who was what in
previous incarnation
And what would one be in the next one
How would they know that the world
Is full of people
Who sup on innocent souls
Whether of animals or human beings! !
(Translated by Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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A Dream I Have To Write
A dream
I have to write
On the wooden slate
Of a child
Playing traunt from the school.
A moon
I have to write
On the forehead
Of a woman
Swarthier than evetide darkness.
A song
I have to write
On the frozen lips
of the wind
Passing through
A bamboo forest.
A name
I have to write
On an unmarked
Grave stone
In a memorial cemetry.
(Translated from Urdu to English by Dr. Satyapal Anand and from English to Spanish by Dr. Teresinka Pereira)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Don't Ever Come, O December
Look December
Don't ever come now!
Look, December
Deserts unnumbered have expanded in me.
All my rivers
Are silted with the sands of loneliness.
Now only I
And the weight of my loneliness
Remain together.
Look, December
In your frozen nights
In your sleepless nights
Who will knit dreamlike sweaters?
Who will pick snowflakes falling in the soul?
Look, December
Don't ever come now!
And even if you do come
Don't go to the abodes of the sun
Wearing the snows of your woes.
Don't ever go to my loved ones!
Look, December
Don't ever come now!
(Translated from the original Urdu into English by Dr. Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Snapshot
Night hidden behind that hillock
Hasn't peeped out so far
The ocean of darkness
Hasn't become turbulent till now
As yet black snakes
Hanging from arms of the clock
Stare at us with red ambers of their eyes
As yet with bated breath
The wolf of time
Waits behind blood-strewn sand dunes
For ripped-open body of the sun.
Surrounded by shadows - green and fresh
The shimmering cold water in the blue lake
Has as yet not become
Acquainted with
Swelling waves of strangeness
In our eyes.
Welcome...... as it is......
The frozen caravan of silent moments
And the unacquainted water
Stay.
Pay heed to me, O stranger,
My co- traveller
Ere the silent ticking of the clock
Turns into an explosion
And declares the sun's demise,
Shall we
Preserve through the camera's eye
This meeting of ours
On the blind screen of feelings......
With the waning, blood-red
Picture of receding evening's myriad scenes?
And thus fill the empty cup
Of our desires with innocent happiness?
(1975, Translated by Dr. Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Prayer In Space Gaols
O God!
I'm but a moment in your endless millennia
My life span is but a shred of your continuum
Since times immemorial
The blue sky signifies the holiness
Of your sleep
You sit in the very heart of the night
Illumining the eternity of stars
Sounds are but the seranata of your silences
You are the ocean of lyrics
Antidote to the grief stretched from end to end
But the fate of my earths is the gaol of space
Set them free, O Lord
Fill the darkness of stellar distances with light!
Make me limitless!
(1993, Translated by Dr. Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Purblind
If some one were to flash a light
Would you be able to see
All those things
Which are lost in the deep swarthy
Liquid of darkness
Life's configuration
Death's face
Body of sadness
Lips of sound, dimples of pain
marble-white feet of happiness
Henna-colored fingers of love
Universes of beloved's tresses
Indeed, the divinely musical shadow of God.......
If some one were to flash a light
Would you be able to see
Wrapped up in the primordial fog
Waiting since life's beginning
Some one's eyes!
(Translated by Dr. Satyapal Anand)
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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Cross On One's Own Shoulder
We had met
On the threshold of a dream
Or in the sprawling hall
Of torturous silence
Of sleepless moments.
Only if chandeliers of memory
Are lighted
Will I ever know where!
All scenes get blurred in darkness.
Words, dots, dashes,
Only if they emerge from the underworld of meaning
Perchance, perhaps then
A forest of meaningfulness
Might grow from the desert womb
Of sterile writings.
Clouds form in azure-blue chalice of the sky.
Indeed, who should I ask about it?
Countless sessions of wasted worship
In the cavernous depths
Of one's own inner self......
who will ever account for it?
Who will decode
The text of moth-eaten pledges?
Did we ever meet each other
Who will know?
(1976, Translated by Dr. satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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The Ultimate Story
When the stony silence
Becomes a shadow
Of internal monologues
And loneliness peeps out
Of door apertures....
Don't write a word!
When evening
Heavy with sorrow
Descends from the roof-tops
Sterile scenes play hide and seek
On paths coming from afar
And eyes placed on cornices
Gather dust of dreams....
Don't write a word!
When letters that spell
Yours name and my name
Get moth-eaten
And words suffocate to death
In closeted books of our lives
A story
You ought to write then
Without a word in it!
(Translated by Dr. Satyapal Anand)
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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A Poem About Expanding Distances
Paths are hot on my trail
And eyes...... as always they do......
Behind, far behind
Are nailed to apertures in the door.
My mom has furrows
Criss-crossed on her time-worn face
And like a dot sans word
Unaware of my own import
I am gaoled in the abdomen
Of starving books.
If one were to look
Into sisters' eyes at the moment of parting
One would know
How deserts are changed into oceans.
Do you remember
You had said at separation
When the dreams of journey
Spring forth from lines of the palm
To become the fate of my feet
Two eyes......as always they do......
Behind, far behind
Will be nailed to the apertures in the door.
And that moment
(you had said)
Will be the last link in our contact.
(1980, Translated By Dr. Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Had Ocean Been My Confidant
Had ocean been my confidant
I'd have given it
All of my truths for safekeeping
Tales i would have written
Of seashells picking girls on beaches
Whose golden bodies were
Like isles of dreamland
But whose fates were
Like lines drawn in sand.
Had ocean been my confidant
I'd have given it
All my loneliness
I'd have walked with the wind
Clasping its finger in my fist
On distant paths
From whence no one comes back!
Had ocean been my confidant
I'd have given it all my depths
Stepping into its limitless
Blue bosom
I'd have made earth into my bark
Sky into my sails
I'd have made the woeful moment
Of separation
A connecting link between you and me.
Had ocean been my confidant!
(Translated from the original Urdu by Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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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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poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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Weep Holes
Don't take us for the wall itself
For when the earthen plank behind the wall
Gets soaked through
We'll let the sorrow of burdonsome wetness
Flow through us
The soil sucks the trees' roots till now
Till now the sorrow of waters
hasn't reached the earthen plank behind the walls
Earth has not seen the woebegone face of the sky
The wall hasn't learnt to shed tears
Wind even now expects to blow the leaves away
Empty polythene bags sputter on roads
That never had trees planted on sides
People drink blood of their own climes
And grow like germs
Bonfire conflagrations ignite every where
Smoke has turned the flowers black
Butterflies' wings look ashen
The dream's face will bend under pressure
And break into smithereens
Let the moisture come!
Let the clouds of pains burst!
Let the sky's sorrow descend to the earth!
Don't consider us the wall itself
Don't think we're but worthless
For when the earthen plank behind the wall
Gets soaked
We'll be there to let the sorrow
Of burdensome wetness
flow through us
Look! Our eyes do not have tears
But the mud of our dreams.
(Translated by Dr. Satyapal Anand)
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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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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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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