Fireworks

~Dreams

Gentlemen, dreams are like birds.
They fly away if you try to touch them
and cannot be caught again.

Sometimes they sit on a branch of the tree of wishes, and sing
a new song for every new season,
making you laugh, or sometimes weep for long hours.

Just like lingering fragrance, they cannot be imprisoned,
cannot be pierced by any hunting arrow.
Sometimes they're like the destination, and sometimes like the roads leading to it.
But most of all, gentlemen, dreams are like birds.
Gentlemen, dreams are like toys.
They burst like bubbles of glass,
break at the lightest of pushes!

They are not bound by an age or any particular time.
Sometimes, they sleep like the doll you hug to sleep at night,
or at times sit in dusty corners like strangers,
and, hearing the footsteps of a familiar sound,
they decorate the cornice of thought, like a fairy wonderland.
Wishes make so many stars blossom in the heart,
and when the moon of dreams rises in an eye,
it sometimes turns friends into strangers.
Gentlemen, dreams are like birds.

Gentlemen, dreams are like houses,
which take a long, long time to become homes,
and just a few short seconds to become a desolate ruin.

The people who used to live amidst these doors and under this ceiling are gone,
but the shadows of their voices are never going to die.
The roads looking for the footsteps of lost feet
in the darkness of the night are never going to die.

So many colors have to fuse to form a bouquet,
but a single thing can cause them to scatter in an instant.
The soft silk woven in a lifetime of sleepless nights
slips away from the hands in the unwary blink of an eye.

They are like the flames of a lost fire.
Gentlemen, dreams are like houses.

~Amjad Islam Amjad

~Beirut-2

My children's bodies
wear wounds.
The empty laps of mothers
are buried in unmarked graves.
...
All the young trees
are being cut constantly.
The flowers in my garden
wane, moment by moment.
...
The streets and the squares are bloody.
Blood floods the gardens and the backyards.
All doors are strung with dead bodies.
All cross-roads have been made into the gallows.
...
Some tents, some shadows of life
yet remain in the field.
Some battle-flags, some songs are still
left in the storm.
...
Merchants of oil wells
ungenerous gods are happy.
In the harem in the palace
transvestites are happy.

~Ahmad Faraz
(translated)

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

~What Name Shall I Call You?

So, it happens that, when an evening drenched in pain
is spreading the poison of the passing days in my thoughts,
when the moon shining on my City of Sight, pales,
and every unslept moment's dream dies a bloody death,
in moments like these, with a strange joy and peace of heart,
your kind hands, hands like silk, like crystal
..
make my head bend over their shoulders.
Just like the helpless people, standing on the shore, in vain hope
call out the name of the drowned one for a very long time.
And it also happens in the ecstasy of your nearness,
when your beauty glitters in my eyes like a metropolis at night,
and I forget the bitter sorrows of the world, or the pain of lonely nights,
in such moments, your silence without any reason
..
or a sharp gaze, or a knife-edged remark
makes me feel pain in countless ways,
hurting so much that every smile turns to tears.
..
What name shall I call you, my cruel lover?
You are my murderer, you are my messiah.

~Ahmad Faraz
(translated)

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~Selfish~

O heart of mine! due to your pain, you were a hundred shades of restless.
You drowned amidst the riots of the day, and lay sleepless at nights,
but a salve for your wounds was hard for you to find.
..
Then, a face that belonged to a stranger heard your songs of sorrow.
It wove dreams of love with the rays of its beauty.
It passed through walls of thorns to plant flowers in your path.
..
O heart of mine! the one who washed away the stains of your longing,
those eyes held tears in them today, and you were lost in thought!
Look! did you ever cry like that for a sorrow that was not your own?

~Ahmad Faraz
(translated)

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Windows are closed and bolted.
In the windows are vast, open landscapes.
On green trees, and dense branches, and on flowers
falls the rain, silent, eternal.
There are crowds! And riots! And noise!
But on a surface of my feelings, so softly,
falls, drop by silent drop, your image.

~Gulzar

(translated)

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Those moments
are frozen, still, in the doorway of thought.
On that long ago December day
when, before thousands,
the lips of your promise
kissed the hands of the life streaming from my eyes.
By the shore of my colorless words
you put down the crutches of your dreams and bright stars of tears,
and sent the wind a signal to protect our love.
So in the coolness of winds today, your soft words still
weave a net of footsteps (and silent whispers).
In my ears echoes
your laughter (still so full of life).
Thought still wipes from your fingertips
the crimson tears of my heart.
Eyes, on the bright, vast, blank canvas of snow, again and again,
paint the need of being with you.
Sunlight lies broken on the body of waters that shiver with cold, and cries out a lament of your absence.
Where are you, these days?
By the edge of the smouldering roads of love,
December still waits for you.

~Dr. Ibrar Ahmad

(translated from Urdu)

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All these things of a love long past.
When dreams glowed in the eyes
and stars shone in the heart.
When my tears fell on the city roads like dust motes in a ray of light.
When limbs intertwined, and entangled breaths and faces burned the body, the soul.
When glittering moonbeams cast
whirlpools in the thoughts.
When my mind was a stormy sea of endless ideas.
And oaths of keeping promises,
and letters written with blood
were a tradition amongst us lovers.
Now all the bright nights in my ruin-filled eyes
are of an age past, an age long gone,
years and years ago.
Now in the roads within my sight
is the color of long-dead moments
and long-shed tears,
some forgotten faces,
and a parade of memories.
All of them things of a love long past.

(translated)

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Once we were beautiful.
Like fragrance caught in the pages of a book
the breath stood still.
We made pictures out of words unsaid
and wrote poems on the wings of birds
and sent them flying to people living on faraway lakes (and shores),
Who were miles apart from us
but lived close by in our hearts.
When the journey of the new day, along with the first ray of the sun, landed in our garden,
we said,
"Mother - the wings of the butterflies are so very pretty!
Kiss us on the forehead,
because we have to leave
for the land of butterflies
and fireflies!
The fireflies of colors
and the butterflies of light are calling for us.
The journey of the new day, along with air dipped in color,
calls us from outside the window.
So kiss us on the forehead.
So kiss us on the forehead.

~Ahmad Shameem
(translated)

Sung very beautifully by Nayyara Noor.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

He has left,
But a tender moment,
Before parting,
Has stayed behind,
On the back of my palm,
Like a new moon in,
My life.

~Parveen Shakir
(translated)

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

That the stars in the lap of the sky,
Tire, and go to sleep.
That all the landscapes scattered on the earth are bemused,
Noisy waterfalls forget to scream,
The restless waves of the sea tire,
The wind stops, surprised.
Let's talk for so long,
Without meaning, without purpose, let's just keep talking.
Let's talk for so long,
That for a moment it becomes difficult for you to think coherently,
And in one such moment,
The declaration of my love slips past your lips!

(Translated)

Posted via m.livejournal.com.