Patricia L. Sharpe 
Translator

on Lyrikline: 8 poems translated

from: urdu to: inglés

Original

Translation

زبانوں كا بوسە

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press, 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Deep Kiss

inglés

Deep myrrh-scented kiss,
deep with the tongue, suffused
with the musky perfume
of the wine of love: I'm reeling
with intoxication, languid
to the point of numbness,
yet with a mind so roused
an eye flies open
in every cell.

And you! Sucking my breath,
my life, from its deepest,
most ancient abode.

Kiss.
Wet, warm, dark.
Pitch black!
Like a moonless night,
when rain comes flooding in.

A glint of runaway time
fleeing in the wilderness of my soul
seems to be drawing closer.

I sway across a shadowy bridge.
It's about to end, I think,
somewhere ahead,
there is light.

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004

تعزيتی قرارداديں

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press , 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Condolence Resolution

inglés

(When a poet dies in Pakistan, friends often hold a condolence
meeting to pass a resolution affirming that the poet was
a Godfearing patriot mistakenly persecuted by the authorities.)

When I am dead, my friends, spare me the pain
Do not give me a testimonial of faith.
Do not declare, in passionate orations,
'This woman was indeed a true believer.'
Do not seek to prove me loyal, my friends,
To the state, the nation
And the powers-that-be.
Do not beg the lords of the land
To claim me at my death.

The taunts of the mean were laurels to me;
The wind and the dust were my soul mates.
The deepest truth lies far within the soul
And those who shared it were my friends.
Mounting a pulpit was not their way,
But they stood tall for me and held my hand.
You must not show them disrespect
Or try to ingratiate me with the judges.
Never say, 'Her corpse seeks forgiveness.'

Don't be distressed if  I am left unburied
If the priest denies me the final rites.
Carry the remains to the woods and leave it there.
It comforts me to think that the beasts would feast
At my bones, my flesh, this strong red heart,
They would feel no need to screen my thoughts.

Their bellies filled, they'll clean their paws
And their sinless eyes will gleam with a truth
That you, my friends, dare never express:
'She always said what she had to say,
And for all her life had no regrets.'

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004

پەلی بار

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press, 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Afterwards

inglés

After love the first time,
Our naked bodies and minds
A hall of mirrors,
Wholly unarmed, utterly fragile,
We lie in one another's arms
Breathing with care,
Afraid to break
These crystal figurines.

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004

پوروا آنچل

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan : Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press, 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Purva Anchal

inglés

How beautiful is this land!
Beautiful and long-suffering.
A shawl of buckwheat green
Flutters in the wake
Of this train speeding
Through the East.

As far as the eye can see,
Green fields and granaries.
This land is a peasant woman
Coming home from the fields
With a bundle on her head.

Home?
Where angry vultures wheel
Over the rooftops and threaten to lunge,
Any minute, in any direction

The grass is wet with dew,
Unless my tear-glazed eyes
See only tears.

Brick and stone
Reduced to rubble.
Mosque and temple
Still locked
In the same old squabble.
Every brow
Disfigured by a frown.

A son of this land,
Laid long ago to rest,
Wakens now
To bring you peace.

Listen to Kabir,
Who pleads with you:
Wars of hatred
Do no honour to God.
Both Ram and Rahim
Will shun a loveless land.

Near a bamboo grove
Across the unruffled River Sarju
By a lotus pond thick with bloom
Stands a Buddha tablet
A message from the wise.

'When two are locked in conflict
And ready to lose their lives,
Neither can win in the end,
Unless both do—and equally.

A battle lost by either
Will be fought and refought
Until both are destroyed
And both are equal losers.'

Such are the paradigms of war,
Such the insight of the Buddha.
Why are we, his heirs, so blind?

The Pandit and the Mullah
Are flattered and hung with garlands
And feasted and housed like lords,
While you dear people of the land
Are drowned every time
In the bloodbaths they inspire.

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004

چادر اور چار ديواری

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press, 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Four Walls and a Black Veil

inglés

What shall I do, Sire, with this black veil?
Why do you bestow on me this great favour?
I am not in mourning that I should wear it
To show the world my grief. Nor am I sick
That I should hide my shame
In its dark folds. Stamp my forehead with this
Dismal seal? If I am not too impudent, Sire
If you assure my life, may I tell you,
Most humbly: There lies, in your perfumed chamber,
A corpse that stinks. It begs for pity.
Cover that shroudless corpse. Not me.
Its stench is everywhere.
It cries for seclusion.

Listen to the heart-rending screams
Of those still naked beneath the veil.
You must know them well, these maids:
The hostage women of vanquished peoples,
Halal for a night, exiled at dawn;
The slave girls who carried your blessed seed
And brought forth children of half status only, yet
Was it not honour enough for them?
The wives who wait their precious turns
To pay homage to the conjugal couch;
The hapless, cowering girl-child
Whose blood will stain your gray beard red.

Life has no more tears to shed; it shed them all
In that fragrant chamber where, for ages now,
This sacrificial drama has played
And replayed. Please, Sire, bring it down.
The curtain. Now. You need it to cover the corpse.
I am not on this earth merely as a signet
Of your great lust.

These four walls and this black veil—
Let them bless the rotting remains.
I have spread my sails
In the open wind, on the wide seas,
And by my side a man stands,
A companion who won my trust.

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004

مری چمبيلی كی نرم خوشبو

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press, 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

The soft fragrance of my Jasmine

inglés

The soft fragrance of my jasmine
Floats on the breeze
Plays with the hand of the wind,
Is setting off in search of you.

The soft fragrance of my jasmine
Has curled around my wrists,
My arms, my throat.
It has woven chains about me.

It lurks in the fogging night,
Seeps through the darkening cold.
Rustling through the leafy thicket,
It's setting off in search of you.

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004

مقابلۀ حُسن

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press , 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Vital Statistics

inglés

You
have measured me,
waist, hips, breast,
and all the rest.

The curves
held a heart
and the round skull
a brain.

If I'm valued
just by the inch,
why do you shrink
from tit for tat,

When I start
to measure
some of your
parts?

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004

كب تك

urdu | Fahmida Riaz

© Fahmida Riaz
from: Four Walls and a Black Veil
Karachi, Pakistan: Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press, 2004
ISBN: 0 19 597711 4
Audio production: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

How long?

inglés

How long will your love hold for me?
How long?

As long as my womb sheds
Its child-bearing blood?
As long as my colour blooms,
My flesh is firm?
Is that how long?

Surely there's something beyond all that,
A place out there, somewhere.
But what it might be
None of us knows.

I journey towards that very place,
Craving the unknown

That far, that long
You will not be with me.

Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe



© Oxford University Press



published in: Fahmida Riaz: Four Walls and a Black Veil.
Foreword by Aamer Hussein. Karachi: Oxford University Press 2004