Author Archives: mshiva

Do You Remember?

Handsome, your beauty surpasses other beauties.
Write, let me know how you are doing, peri.

Everybody did, what happens if I do?
Describing your charm in this gathering, peri?

Your breasts are like marble. Your alef-like stature resembles spruce.
Around your flower-like face, curl to curl, is ambergris scented hair.

You’d sleep and I’d stay all night till dawn,
Guarding your assets and riches, peri.

The day I fell in love with your moon-like charm.
I found that my incurable pain had no remedy.

Do you remember, I was saying: Dawn, Dawn?
Praying no ruin falls on you, peri?

You threw me in the corner of a cage, waiting to see
when paradise wind would blow from your hair.

From beginning to end you gave to everybody,
to paupers your assets and riches, peri.

Pauper Mazun cannot tolerate. He rips
his collar with his hand, making his eyes tearful.

Endures because of you, wipes with your skirt,
in view of your eyelashes, his tearful eyes, peri.

(S110)

Why?

Oh God, one cannot argue with you, but,
why did you throw us in the fire of love?

You formed us with your power, and water and clay.
Why did you create the moon-like beauties?

You made eyebrows into pens, and locks of hair into lassos.
You made sugar-water limpid from sweet lips.

If you wanted me not to become afflicted and degraded,
why did you create lovesick girls?

If you wanted submission and prayers,
you would not have given beauties coquetry and coyness.

If false love is a sin,
why did you make drunkard eyes drunk?

The moth would not burn if there is no candle.
The nightingale would not go mad if there is no flower.

If Layla did not rupture faith,
why should Majnun wander around the mountain and the desert?

I’m talking about your attributes and your essence.
I’m afraid, I cannot return from my inner heart.

From love’s fire, why did you put
troubled words on Mazun’s tongue?

(S99)

Beloved’s Manifestation

One who is eager for love,
the beloved’s manifestation is in his soul.

In his existence there is the sign,
in his bones, marrow, and blood.

Is the beloved a houri or a human?
Venus, the sun, or the moon?

My beloved, in short,
is neither from the earth, nor from the sky.

Day by day my beloved’s beauty becomes more elegant.
Moment by moment I become more saddened.

My beloved is closer to me than myself,
Yet, I don’t know where my beloved is.

One who has reason and knowledge,
becomes intimate with someone of his kind.

I, helpless and Majnun-like,
have become accustomed to the desert.

One lover is roaring.
He is eager to see a shining face.

Another is distressed,
keen to see her lustrous hair.

Another desires his lover’s breasts.
Describes them as ripe pomegranates,
Hails them improperly,
Praises apples of Isfahan.

One lover says: “My beloved is going away.
My liver’s blood became my wine.
From my cry the world became deaf.
Is this friend in the grinding mill?”

Mine is above all others’ loves.
He is dear, a husband to widows.

He knows everything,
whether the meaning or the expression.

The light of his candle doesn’t vanish.
He is the beloved, I’m the lover.

He is the ocean, Mazun the fish,
How wonderful, what an endless sea he is.

(S60-61)

Who Is Here? Who Is There?

In the Garden, when the autumn wind blows,
In the bird’s voice there is wailing and lamentation.

In the lovesick nightingale’s song there is a call,
with a different effect, a different mark.

Still, the nightingale is yearning for the love of the flower.
Still, the salamander is nesting in the oven.

Still, Mansur is hanging on the gallows.
He says: “I’m the Truth,” yet the secret is hidden.

Still, Zulaykha is not afraid of rebuke.
Still, Yusuf is evading Zulaykha.

Still, the Christian maiden is breaching Sheikh San’an’s faith.
Still, the Sheikh is tending her swine.

Still, Majnun desires to become insane.
Still, Layla’s camel flees the caravan.

Still, the noise of Farhad’s pickaxe can be heard.
Still, Shirin’s tale is sweet to tell.

Who is calling and who is telling in the music of the saz?
Everything becomes musical. Who spends life from moment to moment?

Mazun says: “Who is here? Who is on there?”
He is here; he is there. Where is he?

(S35)

Each Person Has A Different Path To The Friend’s Neighborhood

We exchanged reason for love.
Everybody is a buyer of a different good.

The mystic’s design and mark is distinct,
A different bazaar, a different shop.

It’s a different journey, a distinct world.
It’s different from this world and the other world.

Those on the land are unaware of those in the air.
A good from Ethiopia is different from one from Central Asia.

One who is in the sea is ignorant of some one who is in the desert.
Everybody is the king of his own city.

One has become Moses and has seen the Beloved on Mount Sinai.
One, like Jesus, has seen the Beloved while crucified.

One has seen in the dark, another in the light.
Each person has a different path to the Friend’s neighborhood.

One becomes like soil, and kisses the threshold.
Another becomes fervent, then flutters.

One, like Mazun, makes his chest a shield,
seeking the arrow of love.

(S34)

Insanity’s Home

I’m building the house of insanity.
I’m the builder. I’m the architect.

I drink the wine of mysticism.
I’m the wine. I’m the wine drinker.

I’m effaced, fascinated by the friend’s visit.
I’m a carefree, a drunk carefree.

I’m drunk, a sober drunk.
I’m drunk. I’m aware.

I’m my own friend.
I’m the tar, I’m the setar.

I’m the world. I’ve no world.
I’m placeless. I’ve no place.

Look! I’ve no possessions.
I’m the head and the leader myself.

I’m not wiping my tears for no reason.
It’s better not to find a solution.

How come I don’t know my own pain?
I’m the doctor and the remedy myself.

I wandered around the universe.
For the friend’s sake I have broken my heart.

Oh poor me! I didn’t know
I ‘m the beloved and the lover myself.

Mazun, I made myself degraded.
I chose to be in love.

I gave my sole to the beloved.
Soul myself, devotee myself.

(S31)

Love’s Religion

Because of you I chose exile,
I’ve been estranged from my tribe for some time.

I watered my flower with my tears,
Injustice! Don’t take me away from my flower.

There’s nothing wrong if a king wants a pauper,
If a pauper desires a king, he can’t help it.

My desire is too high; my luck is too low,
There is no cure for this pain but death.

What’s with the melancholic ascetic?
He argues with me about faith and religion.

The religion of the lover is the beloved.
I’m taking no path but my own.

The sweet laughter—I didn’t love in vain.
I didn’t graft reason onto love.

She pulls me, she pulls me with her lasso-like braid.
How could I be separated from her ambergris-scented hair?

Peris, lovely, tall beauties –
Mazun won’t refuse if they want his soul.

I’ve put my head in their path.
My head’s bad luck is because of my tongue.

(S27)

My Pain

I became Majnun in the desert of affliction.
Whom could I tell about my crazy pain?

My heart is bleeding because of separation from my friend.
I cannot confide in any foolish person my pain.

That nightingale who was estranged from his flower,
is continuously lamenting loneliness.

Oh zephyr, from prisoner’s tongue,
tell the gardener about my pain.

My patience has reached its limits. I have no peace.
Time of my joy has passed. I have no companion.

There is no confidante for my secrets.
Let no stranger know of my pain.

If a compassionate friend is known.
Tells the beloved of my pain with fervor and passion.

Nightingale’s eagerness for the flower garden never ends.
Enthusiasm for love never goes out of his mind.

Mazun’s complaints never end by telling.
I should write my pain as narratives.

(S21)

A Blessed Night

Tonight is a blessed night; the friend is my guest.
May this night be long – I hope dawn never comes.

Her light is the candle of my shabestan. (nightly prayer niche – world of night)
Tell the sun not to rise and the moon not to appear.

Her black eyebrow is like the letter qaf of the Quran.
The side of her bosom is fragrant, like the navel of the Chinese musk deer.
(Her breast is fragrant of musk – Her breast is musk sweetened)

For the party’s fragrance her hair is enough.
No rose-water should be sprinkled and no ambergris is needed.

Her perfumed braid is a lasso around my neck.
Her fragrant hair is grafted onto my life.

The lump sugar of her upper lip is just enough.
Why should I want rock sugar? I have no need for sugar.

My hand came upon the fruit of her flowery bosom.
My parched throat had found refreshing.

From her breasts my hands have the scent of muskmelon.
There is no need for pomegranates at this party.

I cannot let go of this cheerful sweet gazelle.
This witty, sweet talking, pleasant conversationalist.

Embrace her and surrender to a sweet sleep!
Don’t expect her to wake up.

My beloved is peaceful, my heart is peaceful.
Things endure, death is persistent.

Mazun says: ” I pray day and night,
may no soul be without a darling,
and no heart without a sweetheart.”

(S 8)

Existed

I didn’t decide to carry the load of sorrow,
sorrow existed, this house of sorrow also existed.

I didn’t lift the Jam-e Jam to drink wine,
wine existed, this house of wine also was there.

It is said: “He who created the house of love,
let the beloved burn and the lover burnt.”

The cruelty of the red rose, and the cry of the nightingale—
the candle existed, and this moth also existed.

One’s pain is too much, another’s little,
one’s heart is afflicted, another’s smiles.

Majnun is drunk from love, and Layla is drunk from coyness.
The mountain existed and this madman also existed.

The eyes of beauties were drunken and murderous.
Her tongue was like sugar, and her lips the confectioner.

The suffering boy and the loving girl existed,
the tyrant father and miser mother were also there.

That teasing that breaches faith,
the arrow of coy that pierces the soul,

It was not that Mazun was targeted last night,
the arrow was there and the target was there.

(S7)