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Poems by Mohammed Alvi, translated from Urdu
Moonlight
Waking from sleep last night
I saw that the moon stood in my room
And the iron bars of my window
Lay scattered on the floor.
Shock
A bottle of ink
Fell and broke
On my mind’s floor;
I felt splintered glass
In my body
And an inky blackness
Spreading.
Who?
Someone floats and sinks in my racing blood
Or wanders through the tunnels of my bones
And sometimes softly whispers:
“You’re still alive,
How presumptuous you are!”
Who is this within my body
So irritated with me!
The Kite’s Shadow
The sun glided like a serpent down the wall
And stung my toe beneath the loose strung cot,
My little one screamed in her play,
Cried and then giggled.
The kite’s shadow flitted across my rooftop
And fell in the adjoining street.
Lying on my cot in the sun
I watched the reversed pockets
Of my worn out, dripping trousers
Hung up to dry.
The sun’s poison shot up from my toe
And leapt towards my heart.
The kite’s shadow scurried within my body.
Poem by Makhdoom Mohiuddin, translated from Urdu
Complaint (A lyrical poem)
Even the shadow of your wall did not own me,
I had never imagined that such a time would ever come.
Encountering skeletons of bewitching memories,
The face looked like a broken mirror.
Your words once resembled the ambrosial caress of flowers,
But the heart is now oppressed at their very thought.
All my life I worshipped one beautiful image,
But when I opened my eyes,
Another idol stood before me.
With every breath, the heart catches fire and explodes
As though its basement is filled with gunpowder.
When the flowers that bloomed in the wilderness
Enfolded me in their embrace
The sky appeared like a tiny shooting star.
O Makhdoom! Keep that lunatic away from the hot sun,
Whither is he striding
Leaving the shade of a fresh, dewy flower?
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