
Five Poems by Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou
translated by Siavash Saadlou
The Fall Hastens
In memory of Masoud Mohammadi
Over on the branches beset by pillage
they are making the bed for ravens.
This is how the city falls prey to the autumn;
a city, moderating its yellow with
a red apple and the blue of blues,
with young girls bending over the fences
of balconies; a city made visible in
a tumult of thin smoke, in the wind’s
bathing, and its lamp oil feeds from the wind;
the wind which—comical and mercurial—
flutters the headbands and headscarves—
at every small opportunity—over the draping
ropes or in the lines of moments and smiles;
the wind that gives coloratura to the
voice of muezzins atop a turquoise minaret;
the wind that shuts out the traffic jam
against the commuter’s nap.
The wind’s breath gets cold
in the shade. Through a fog,
the sun, with fleeting warmth,
is shining momentarily; and the
cobwebs can be seen for a moment…
The fall hastens
in its ancient ways.
The yellow hair of vine ruffles
the foreheads of the draftsman’s houses.
Languid, the threadbare branch of
the pomegranate tree leans its head
on the wall’s shoulder, and the sooty
boughs of persimmon tree make it
the most crestfallen tree in the yard.
One hundred thousand decrepit houses,
with dim eyes, are ready for the landing
of ravens. The periodical singers of the season
are also awaiting the sunset bell, and
the school children scatter about the city
alleys—at 3 o’clock in the afternoon—
with the smell of orange in their backpacks.
Wadi of Mina
One cannot see the cities.
One cannot hear the cities.
One cannot burrow deep into
the city’s secrets. Some keys
have been embedded in books;
one cannot memorize a book instead of a city.
One cannot know a city only by visiting
its main square, churches and exhibitions;
by drinking a cup of tea or conversing with
a vagrant sunbathing on a park bench.
One cannot fathom a city.
Travel books are a make-believe reality…
Think of Tehran’s epigraph that you have seen
but never noticed, though the alleys have taken
root the same way. Someday, you will arrive
at a crossroads, at an old grocer—looking like
that vagrant—who has frozen on his stool
like the state of a perpetual sneeze.
And a cat is taking a nap beside his grill.
You saw a scene you had never seen before
which is no secret but only an omen of
another secret that’s revolving about
in an orbit of omens. So, leave this scene behind.
Think of the shoes of the ones who have trotted
the globe with their walking stick rapping at the ground.
Isn’t there a city inside you with its camels
blocking the way against the shuttle of the
orbiting universe? And beneath the square,
shops whose undergrounds no one knows
if are pantries or old torture chambers, and
rats that no one knows if they are chewing
on cardboards or gathering gold coins.
In its sky, flying horse, winged sphinx and paper crows
are floating amongst helicopters, and in the imagination
of its every mountain is an Alhambra, and if you open
a book in its library, instead of expired words, the author
often jumps out to laugh at the reader’s mind—
an unfinished reader, an unsuccessful author?
One cannot be hopeful that the city’s sweethearts
would rise up from the canvases on which the sun
resembles the head of a woman warrior, a peek
of David’s and of the spirit of a sweet home sharing
a drink with wine drinkers and of every other thing
that will slowly be hollowed out from
the consciousness of our memory.
Spain, Guadalmina, June 2006
This Very Smile
This very smile, innocent and telling,
with no specific meaning. This very colorless
afterlife that promises the pink flower
the company of some black hair, smelling
the fragrant moon, swimming in
the soft waves of the tusk.
This very smile that looks “sisterly”.
The pink drum of a flower carries
the youthful audacity from
its own ears to yours.
This very smiling civilization which left
the poet aghast between a pleasant barbarism
and observing the era’s rites; a civilization that
fails to see the dividing line between a kiss
of reception and the kiss of affection.
It is the key secret to wonder under the old spell
of a culture, this very mystery, this smile.
Wholesome Memory
I am not standing anywhere.
I have leaned on your shadow.
I drink from your stone lips.
The pointing finger: your hair;
your body: a picture of the air;
blue, made of the stone of your lips.
Who would feel slaked sucking
the stone, unless the memory
is wholesome? But I am water, flowing.
I flow down from your shadow.
I am seeking your sculpted figure
until slipping down your fingertips,
drop by drop, into the brittle soil
in which everything takes root
except a wholesome memory.
Foreboding Letter
Winter. Afternoon light. Dried garden.
Inside the frame the picture of clouds folds
like an unwritten letter. Variegated imaginings
of a wooden warrior were running in the cold room.
Two children were making houses out of paper.
Next to despair, beside the letters coming from afar,
up on the niche on the wall, a framed photo floating
in a dream came to itself and stared at the mirror,
as if refining its lukewarm smile.
Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou, an Iranian poet, author and literary critic, was born in November 1940. Nicknamed the Poet of Tehran for his panegyrics about Iran’s capital city, Sepanlou published more than 60 volumes of poetry and essays. Sepanlou was also a founding member of the Writers’ Association of Iran. He was awarded the Max Jacob Memorial Award for his four-decade literary accomplishments. Sepanlou died in 2015, aged 74.
Siavash Saadlou is a writer and translator from Iran. His poetry has appeared in Saint Katherine Review, Sons and Daughters, CIRQUE, Scoundreltime, and KAIROS. His translations of contemporary Persian poetry have been published by Washington Square Review, Pilgrimage, and Asymptote, among many other journals. Saadlou holds an MFA from Saint Mary’s college of California. He lives in Tehran, teaching translation and creative writing workshops.
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