In This Blind Alley
by AHMAD SHAMLU
24 Jul 2010 21:28Comments
They smell your mouth
Lest you've told someone 'I love you.'
They smell your heart
These are strange times, my dear
Love,
they drag out under lampposts
to thrash.
Love must be hid in closets at home.
In the cold of this blind alley
They keep their fires ablaze
burning our anthems and poems.
Do not venture to think.
These are strange times, my dear
He who pounds on the door in the nighttime
Has come to kill the light.
Light must be hid in closets at home.
Lo! the butchers
stationed on roads
with chopping-board and cleaver soaked in blood
These are strange times, my dear
They slit smiles off of lips
And song from the throat.
Joy must be hid in closets at home.
Canaries are being roasted
on a spit of lilacs and jasmine
These are strange times, my dear
Satan, triumph-drunk
Feasts at a table spread with our mourning
God must be hid in closets at home.
This poem was written shortly after the 1979 Revolution.
Translated by Saya Ovaisy in Tehran, Summer 2009
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