Translation: Give us love’s flirtatious look and shatter sorcery’s bazaar With but a seductive glance, shatter wealthy Samer’s law Give both the head and turban of the whole world to the wind That is, let your hair down, let the heart-breaking begin Tell the lock of hair to give up its bold arrogance “Shatter…
The magic of music
What is music and why there is so much of the enchantment of love in it? Music is the secret of Love and Love is the secret of God Original: سرود چيست كه چندين فسون عشق داراوست سرود محرم عشق است و عشق محرم اوست Love plays its lute behind the…
The certitude of my brightest love
Hafez: I have never seen a more beautiful reminder than the words of love that linger in this turning dome از صدای سخن عشق نديدم خوشتر يادگاری که در اين گنبد دوار بماند Cristina Branco: The certitude of my brightest love The certitude of my brightest…
Love’s Ocean Has No Shore…
Say: Were the ocean ink for the Words of my Lord (to be written out), sooner would the ocean be exhausted than would the Words of my Lord, even if We added another ocean like it, for its aid. -Surah Kahf: 109 Sarmad: The ocean of his generosity has no shore. The tongue is…
Rumi-Just for me
You belong to me to me to me جان منی جان منی جان من You are my life my life my life essence آن منی آن منی آن من You belong to me to me to me alone شاه منی لایق سودای من You are my king, we deserve to mingle قند منی لایق…
Hafez’s falcons
From the Nightingale in the garden, ask the news. for I Hear his lament that forth from the cage comes Friends! The true Beloved desires the prey of Hafez’s heart: For the prey of a little fly, a great falcon comes. Translation: H. Wilberforce Clarke Original: خبر بلبل این باغ بپرسید که من…
The Alif
Listen: Hafez ghazal I speak frankly and that makes me happy: I am the slave of love, I am free of both worlds. I am a bird from heaven’s garden. How do I describe that separation, my fall into this snare of accidents? I was an angel and highest paradise was my place. Adam…
Lovers never die
Hafez: هرگز نمیرد آن که دلش زنده شد به عشق ثبت است بر جریده عالم دوام ما He whose heart has been revived by love will never die Our eternity has been written in the record of the world Me: Lips scalded by love’s tongues of…
Compasses
Abu Sa’īd Abu’l Khayr (10th-11th C) Translation: You and I, my love, are a pair of compasses though divided in twain, in body we are one We circle on a point, anon like compasses at the end we bring our heads together as one. Translation: Reza Ourdoubadian. The Poems of Abu Sa’id Abu’l…
Camarón and Persian Poetry- “Nothing is Eternal” and “The Cicada”
Sarmad The universe is a kaleidoscope: now hopelessness, now hope now spring, now fall. Forget its ups and downs: do not vex yourself: The remedy for pain is the pain. Translation by Peter Lamborn Wilson and Nasrollah Pourjavady Translation: Punishment replaces punishment and one pain removes another a nail takes out…