Alireza Abiz 

Translator

I left the house at night following a young rabbit.

She took me through the trees toward the sea.

A fierce wind blew and a sudden rain fell.

I stood on an esplanade and looked out at sea.

The rabbit was moving off on a shining board.

The sea was terrifying and I was shaking.

The rabbit was still moving away on the board.

I said nothing about my dream to you.

I said nothing about my dream to her.

I went back home from the sea, hopeless.

The rabbit was sleeping soundly in my bed.

Price of Life

On no price

Could they buy his life

They decided therefore

To sell him to death

For free

From: Garrison Poems

Long nights
Tales of forbidden love
Small pleasures
And forged permits for leave

Days
Washing the major's car
Mopping the corridors
Running errands for the officers

They lounge under an ash tree
Behind the sergeant's back
a cigarette is passed from hand to hand

As smoke and curses
curl into the air
they envy the freedom of a bird

Memories of Seclusion

My right shoe has gone on leave
I'm neither four-footed, nor two

I read Nietzsche in a state of primordial trinity
At night he enters my sleep and says: 
Finally, I get to rub out your moustache!

The phone has gone straight to voicemail for days
Yet again, the bloody landlord!

I scratch my foot with a knitting needle

Nothing good ever came from the right
The left is left
I am weary, so weary,
tired of this tripartate opposition:
right-handedness, left-mindedness, nihilism

From behind many a hills
I hear the wail of jackals
And the void music of the dawn

The trumpets
Cough like the gripped cocks
And the garrison morning
Bursts out from amidst the pin leaves of pine

The tired soldier
Puts his boots around his neck
And pisses in his helmet

I dreamed I have swallowed an oak tree
And its branches grow in my stomach
It is soon to come out of my skin
A pigeon is building a nest on the bough
And a leopard is taking a nap under the shadow
In the leopard’s dream
I am his mother and I am suckling him
I want to wake up
I fear I may disturb the leopard’s dream

Stand up!
Stand up!
You’re standing in line in Palangan Mosque
Your knapsack is filled with tuna and gift nuts
And your waist decorated with cartridge boxes
Stand up!
And you climb up Shahoo in a long queue
And hear the breeze amidst the grass
And the river flowing down the valley

Sit beside that rock
And let river pass through the valley
The men take water in white jars
You’re tired
Sit beside that rock
 Sight on the black spot, fire!

The spring grass is crushed under foot
It has covered the graves
And the moustache of Akbar Komole
Company! Ahead!
The boots are oversize for your feet
When you pass the first corner
You’ll see Dervish Faaress
With his long M1
Wrapping a cigarette
You’re frightened
Tight grasp the Klachinkov

In the Israeli sleeping-bag
You’re slept comfortably
And no news of gun and gunshot in your dream
You’re left behind
From the company who has gone to the front line

Among the tamarisk bushes
With a tin of hot water
Ghosl mikonam Ghosle Jenabat
Bar man vajeb ast ghorbatan elal Allah

He breaks his gun
Sends his soldiers home
Opens the last fort

-The white flag on the sky
Looks like a pigeon

Can you conquer it?

It is long since this black cat
Is sitting on the veranda facing my room
Looking at me with his shining eyes
Through the dark

It is long since I have not been a sparrow
A pigeon
Even a domestic hen
But this black cat
Is sitting on the veranda facing my room
Looking at me with his shining eyes
Through the dark

The agent asked me for an ID card
None of my cards had a photo on
I should have talked to a woman passing across the road
The woman fell down
And changed into a leaf of grass

I turned back terrified
And entered the road
With the agent who still had my photo-less card in hand
The woman was passing with a bag under her arms

I approached her and called her by name
She turned back and descended on my ID Card
In the shape of a lifeless pigeon

The first epistle comes out of the broken parts of the ship
And the tumult of the seagulls
In a turbulent night
From amidst the naked bodies on the cool sands
Maroubra Beach, Malabar Beach, Bronte Beach,
La Perouse (Does it taste French?)
Who is standing on the deck and shouts: Land! Land!
And a new world is born
And the first epistle formed
With gravels and jellyfish
And the bare sound of waves at night
And the terrified souls of the sailors
Beaten on the coast with each wave and repulsed
And the black flags with broken skulls patrol the seas
One-eyed pirates
Hide the world treasures in unknown islands
New islands emerge
Lands are born
And cover the body of ocean
Like small warts

-A weekly ticket-
And a tour round the harbor
Side by side couples moving from one café to another
To whom the bridge pillars and the wall corners are bedroom curtains
And the park grass
Their wedding bed
- With your permission Captain Cook-
Amigo, Amigo, Amigo
And the wave of crowd with the odor of Paris perfume
And the sweat of women who have danced till dawn
- With your permission Captain Cook-
And the empty beer cans floating on the waterways

The first epistle ends
And an astringent taste remains in the mouth
From a night of happy drink in the everlasting vertigo of sounds and laughters
Hurrah!

- Stop, we shall get off