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 Iranian poet, Hossein Panahi was a visitor of the earth from
1956 to 2004. He began his professional life as a young
religious preacher but later abandoned the sacred attire to
begin an excommunicated and creative life as an actor, film
director, scenarist and a passionate poet. Panahi was mainly
popular due to his enactment of exotic roles on the stage as
well as Iranian cinema and television. His childlike stature and
fragile physique plus his particular way of speaking and
recitation of poetry made him stand out from his contemporaries.
His first book "Me and Nazy" (short for Nazanin, a feminine
Persian name meaning sweetheart or lovely) published in 1997 was
reprinted sixteen times and is translated into six languages.
Apology
Without you
not even the scent of earth saved me
nor counting the stars did comfort me.
Why did you call my name?
Headfirst and fervent
I awaited you a generation
and yet, you did not come.
And the landmark of this expectation
were the two thousand years that flew by the birth of Christ
and an era
that was the age of Volume pills.
Lamp
I had gone on a whatever way,
she took my hand and pulled me through the night.
From now on I shall tread on
whatever way all my life.
Simple Heart
Go back my simple heart
and for a mere grain of salt
shoo away the sparrows from the rice chaff,
because the sugar cubes of this town
were nothing but a lie.
My Heart
In that moment
when my young hands
passed through the daylight
of flower showers and greetings of half-comrade friends,
my heart was
a shadow that stood in the cold
and knotted its scarf.
Door
Hello!
Goodbye!
If you do find something new
add them to these two,
may it open the lost door on this wall!
Tomorrow
Today,
my mind is occupied
by a mare and its foal.
Tomorrow,
I will write you a love poem.
From a longer poem: "The Story of Someone Who Was No One"
And the white dog of my safety turned black in oblivion
And I forgot my doves
And went on and I went on and went on
From one page to another
From one face to another
From one day to another
From one town to another
So that I would know, I would find, I would learn
under the sky of a land where the only equally distributed
was death.
Hossein Panahi
Translation: Maryam Ala Amjadi
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