Heart Museum

I was never born

I walk amidst the subterranean darkness digging in the birth and death

I have already learnt that I will never be born in this turbulent human world

Roaming among museums of the world I have come across lots of archeological exhibits

The fragmented sighs blended with seized memories

There are so many museums and I am searching for their secret doors

Where tunnels have been built reaching towards private balconies

The heart has flown to the untamed rocky summit,

The horizon has reached the bone lanterns

Small and big, empty and full, void and hollow, myriads of hearts

Gather in the casket adorned with sighs, deception and much more

And wait for ages in silence within a session.

I will never be born to witness this,

Now a fierce shriek is carrying me away in a flying saucer

Today a new museum will be inaugurated…

Too Close and Too Far Away from Athens

I had no vision, so you called me blind easily!

A storm evoked when I walked on the archeological plain

Hand in hand with Homer! The fragmented history

Shivered wrapped around the hands of the epic…

Both of us were without vision…

While we kissed with sizzling passion amidst pin drop silence,

The wall paintings ushered in the mellowing saxophone.

A troop of born-blind sailors were swimming in the age of water

Valets were waiting with the dress at the bathing-house

The band was playing hydraulus in the half lit half dark yard,

The singing raindrops embraced the bathers…

We stood under the quiet acropolis shade

Diffusing ourselves into the ruins of temples

Or the ancient tales of the golden era.

Our village was immersed under the ancient rain

In search of a little bit of warmth, as if too close

Yet too far away from Athens, like the unresolved hydraulic riddle,

Echoes from the dark era remained like blindness incarnated…

Alzheimer’s

The malady of forgetting names is growing worse and worse in me

Sometimes even my own name seems unfamiliar to me

My poems are on the verge of forsaking me and for this all my annoyances

Target no one else but me! Isn’t it strange?

Who will I speak with about this failure?

Is it easy to blame it on myself, isn’t it unfair?

My ultimate failure announces the end, asks me to leave raising its finger,

The coming night will be a night of silted awakening after the rainfall

When the refreshing aroma of harvest will fill the air, who would acknowledge me?

It’s about time I should pack my suitcase,

Who knows, perhaps tomorrow might be the time to leave

But where will I leave my malady of forgetting names!

Translator: Lubna yasmin