Faiz Ahmad Faiz Poem

A Prison Evening

Each star a rung
Night comes down the spiral
Staircase of the evening
The breeze passes by so very close
As if someone just happened to speak of love
In the courtyard
The trees are absorbed refugees
Embroidering maps of return on the sky
On the roof
The moon - lovingly, generously
Is turning the stars
Into a dust of sheen
From every corner, dark-green shadows
In ripples, come towards me
At any moment they may break over me
Like the waves of pain each time I remember
This separation from my lover

This thought keeps consoling me
Though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed
In rooms where lovers are destined to meet
They cannot snuff out the moon, so today
Nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed
No poison of torture make me bitter
If just one evening in prison
Can be so strangely sweet
If just one moment anywhere on this earth___!!

Before You Came

Before you came things were just what they were
The road precisely a road, the horizon fixed
The limit of what could be seen
A glass of wine was no more than a glass of wine

With you the world took on the spectrum
Radiating from my heart: your eyes gold
As they open to me, slate the color
That falls each time I lost all hope

With your advent roses burst into flame
You were the artist of dried-up leaves, sorceress
Who flicked her wrist to change dust into soot
You lacquered the night black

As for the sky, the road, the cup of wine
One was my tear-drenched shirt
The other an aching nerve
The third a mirror that never reflected the same thing

Now you are here again—stay with me
This time things will fall into place
The road can be the road
The sky nothing but sky
The glass of wine, as it should be, the glass of wine___!!

Do Not Ask My Love

Do not ask, my love, for the love we had before:
You existed, I told myself, so all existence shone
Grief for me was you; the world’s grief was far
Spring was ever renewed in your face
Beyond your eyes, what could the world hold?
Had I won you, Fate’s head would hang, defeated
Yet all this was not so, I merely wished it so
The world knows sorrows other than those of love
Pleasures beyond those of romance
The dread dark spell of countless centuries
Woven with silk and satin and gold braocade
Bodies sold everywhere, in streets and markets
Besmeared with dirt, bathed in blood
Crawling from infested ovens
My gaze returns to these: what can I do?
Your beauty still haunts me: what can I do?
The world is burdened by sorrows beyond love
By pleasures beyond romance
Do not demand that love which can be no more___!!

Ghazal

I am being accused of loving you, that is all
It is not an insult, but a praise, that is all

My heart is pleased at the words of the accusers
O my dearest dear, they say your name, that is all

For what I am ridiculed, it is not a crime
My heart's useless playtime, a failed love, that is all

I haven't lost hope, but just a fight, that is all
The night of suffering lengthens, but just a night, that is all

In the hand of time is not the rolling of my fate
In the hand of time roll just the days, that is all

A day will come for sure when I will see the truth
My beautiful beloved is behind a veil, that is all

The night is young, Faiz start saying a Ghazal
A storm of emotions is raging inside, that is all_______!!

Highway

A despondent highway is stretched
Its eyes set on the far horizon
On the cold dirt of its bosom
Its grayish beauty spread

As if some saddened woman
In her lonely abode, lost in thought
In contemplation of union with her Beloved
Every pore sore, limbs limp with exhaustion_____!!

It Is Spring Again

It is spring, And the ledger is opened again
From the abyss where they were frozen
Those days suddenly return, those days
That passed away from your lips, that died
With all our kisses, unaccounted
The roses return: they are your fragrance
They are the blood of your lovers
Sorrow returns. I go through my pain
And the agony of friends still lost in the memory
Of moon-silver arms, the caresses of vanished women
I go through page after page. There are no answers
And spring has come once again asking
The same questions, reopening account after account_____!!

Last Night

Last night, your long-lost memory came back to me as though
Spring stealthily should come to a forsaken wilderness
A gentle breeze its fragrance over burning deserts blow
Or, all at once be soothed somehow the sick soul’s distress____!!

Loneliness

Loneliness like a good, old friend
Visits my house to pour wine in the evening.
And we sit together, waiting for the moon,
And for your face to sparkle in every shadow_______!!

My Heart My Traveler

My heart, my fellow traveler
It has been decreed again
That you and I be exiled
Go calling out in every street
Turn to every town
To search for a clue
Of a messenger from our Beloved
To ask every stranger
The way back to our home

In this town of unfamiliar folk
We drudge the day into the night
Talk to this stranger at times
To that one at others

How can I convey to you, my friend
how horrible is a night of lonliness
It would suffice to me
If there were just some count
I would gladly welcome death
If it were to come but once____!!

My Interview

The wall has grown all black, upto the circling roof.
Roads are empty, travellers all gone. Once again
My night begins to converse with its loneliness
My visitor I feel has come once again
Henna stains one palm, blood wets another
One eye poisons, the other cures

None leaves or enters my heart's lodging
Loneliness leaves the flower of pain unwatered
Who is there to fill the cup of its wound with color?

My visitor I feel has come once again
Of her own will, my old friend-her name
Is Death: a friend in need, yet an enemy
The murderess and the sweetheart____!!

Solitude

Is someone there, oh weeping heart? No, no one there
Perhaps a traveler, but he will be on his way
The night is spent, the dust of stars begins to scatter
In the assembly halls dream-filled lamps begin to waver
Small streets sleep waiting by the thoroughfare
Strange earth beclouds footprints of yesterday
Snuff out the candles, put away wine-cup and flask
Then lock your eyelids in this morning dusk
For now there's no one, no one who will come here_______!!

Some Lover To Some Beloved

Down the memory lanes, on which
you've strolled since ages past
They will end if you walk farther a step or two
Where exits the turn towards the wilderness of forgetfulness
beyond which, there isn't any Me, nor any You
My eyes hold their breath, for any moment you
may turn back, move ahead, or at least turn to look back

Although my sight knows that the wish is just a farce
For if ever it were to run across your eyes again
right there will spring forth another pathway
Like always, where ever we run into, there will begin
another journey of your lock's shadow, your embrace's tremor

The other wish is also in error, for my heart knows
There is no turn here, no wilderness, no mountain-range
beyond whose horizon, my perpetual sun-of-your-Love can set
May you continue walking these pathways, its better this way
If you don't even turn to look back, it is okay_________!!