Translated from the Persian by Alireza Behnam
What?
What a war it is when the earth looks at “what”
The trumpet is playing like the ashes remaining from the old wars
On the ruined magnificent chateaux
And it remains from the “it is war”
Like ever
Her ringlets rise from the petrol tubes from the rivers ruined by
the colors of war
And fixes to a gaze from behind which gazes into the labyrinth of tubes
It remains from the “it is war” and goes on toward falling
A big bomb stands above and doubts to fall
It is a doubting bomb, it slips from her ringlets, falls between the petrol tubes
The world’s violence rests coldly on her shoulders
From the tubes rising from her ringlets
Falls the “it is war,” falls the missed legs
The eyes loosened from the skulls
The earth is like ever between her ringlets
What a war it is like ever!
And the falling is falling from her ringlets
It is falling to say “what?”
Hanging from the Trees of Babylon
At the end
I’ll come down
in my thousand years form
hanging from the towers of Cheghazanbil*
and there is something within me
that throws language to the battlements of the tower
you will praise me
that’s clear
in the form of an old man
hanging from the trees of Babylon
Athennes† will rise within me
and Paris
and Perspolise‡
and many many languages
Cut me to pieces!
every piece will come as a word
and will come as a word
and will encircle your eyes
Hurray is within me
and rising of the language beyond Pluto
and Artemis’s herd
and rebellion of disobedient words
the whole are within me
and I,
in my thousand years form
will be thrown
from the virgins painted on temple walls
to the shadows emerging from your computer
and being thrown is within me
ask me!
ask me about the future
I’ll reply in Babylonian.