The Mirror of My Heart

by Unknown

  And bit in their pleasure the backs of their hands66

  But the dancing girl, just as she hadn’t the evening before,

  Didn’t smile, wasn’t happy, took no cute curtain call—

  Instead her face frowned, she made fists of her hands,

  The joy of her lovers didn’t please her at all

  Her eyes they were feverish, and heavy with languor,

  Her drunkenness showed both her pain and regret

  The wine in her mind was burning and fiery, she longed

  For a life filled with joy, which she’d never known yet

  For all of her life she’d given others such pleasure

  But pleasure had never been why her heart raced,

  All her life she’d served others the wine of delight

  While she’d had not a drop of it, not even a taste

  And so that her crying wouldn’t make sorrow worse,

  She hid her charred feelings, her lips were sealed tight,

  Like a candle she was, whose flame was her longing,

  Dancing for others, burning down through the night

  Oh how she felt she must have her heart’s justice

  And wrest all its grief from the mob in this lair

  Then perhaps she’d escape from this sickening hell-hole,

  Free her feet from the chains that were holding her there

  Loudly she shouted, “You louts who abuse me,

  Don’t throw me a flower and don’t blow me a kiss—

  You’ve broken my back with this burden of pain

  And I thirst for your blood—yes it’s me who says this!”

  Then one of the crowd cried, “The girl’s drunk, and tonight

  She’s gone far too far, it’s the drinks that she’s had;

  But look how her anger has turned her face black—

  It’s not drink that has done this, the poor thing’s gone mad!”

  Again the girl shouted, “Just which of you, tell me,

  Which one of the lot of you, tell me, which one

  Tomorrow won’t reproach himself knowing

  My youth faded like this until it was gone?

  “Which of you? Tell me! Who’s there among you

  Who’ll free me from all of the drunks gathered here?

  Who’ll put all my life back in order, take my hand,

  And make the road I should travel appear?”

  Among the drunks the girl’s words produced silence

  A strange pause in the noise, a dead quiet—and after

  This moment of silence the crowd gave its answer . . .

  A few scattered bursts of contemptuous laughter

  *

  The End of Waiting

  I have a thousand hopes, and all of them are you

  The start of happiness, the end of waiting’s you

  Those past springs that I lived through without you,

  What were they then but autumns, since the spring is you?

  My heart is empty now of everything but you

  So stay still where you are, be permanent and true

  A shooting star’s a matter of impulsive moments

  The star that mocks the darkness of the night is you

  If all the people in the world desire my blood

  What should I be afraid of? My loving friend is you

  My heart’s a jug that’s overflowing with desire

  I have a thousand hopes, and all of them are you

  *

  Gone from my heart, from my arms, from my memory,

  Don’t look at me, I cannot bear your gaze

  Don’t look at me, because your black eyes

  Have left only bitter sadness in my memory

  Gone from my heart, so tell me, truly, why

  You’ve come back to me tonight

  If you’ve come for that lover you desired

  I’m not her, she is dead and I am her shadow

  I’m not her, no, my heart is cold and black

  Her melancholy heart had sparks of love within it

  Everywhere, with everyone, whatever happened,

  She longed for you, my faithless love

  I’m not her, my eyes are dull and dumb

  Her eyes contained so many hidden words

  And that sad love in those dark eyes like night

  Was more mysterious than twilight in the evenings.

  No, I’m not her, it’s a long time since

  These colorless lips blossomed because of your love

  But there were always life-giving smiles on her lips

  Sleeping like moonlight on dewy flowers

  Don’t look at me, I cannot bear your gaze,

  That person you want from me, I swear she’s dead

  She was in my body and suddenly I don’t know

  How she saw, or what she did, or where she went, or why she died

  I am her grave, I am her grave, on her warm body

  I placed the cold camphor of regret

  She died, and in my breast this pitiless heart

  Is the stone that I placed on that grave.

  *

  For What?

  For what? That I stay for two hundred years

  looking at cruelty and corruption,

  that I see each day through to its end

  each night through till dawn,

  that each dawn from behind the window

  I see the mocking face of the sun

  and look at another day

  with immense disgust

  before bitter tea has touched my lips

  then once again the writhing squirming struggle . . .

  that I go over the tale once again

  of the book of Balkh’s poet67

  a cage, the whole world a cage, a cage

  I think of fleeing

  of pulling my cloak round my body

  my head scarf over my hair . . .

  to the streets of nowhere.

  In the midst of depravity and misery, in this smoke,

  this sorrow for all that is and is not

  I begin my complaint against oppression.

  Although you’ve called me again

  all our friends are suffering

  shall I leave them in the midst of disaster?

  For what? That I enjoy myself again

  For what? That your good doctors

  make me well again

  and I take the risk, suitcase in hand

  that I’m ready to travel again

  that I come, and my heart is renewed

  that I come with my eyes unclouded68

  that I come and among your people

  I once again make a stir with my poems

  But I haven’t fallen into this snowy cloud

  in such a way that I’ll get out again

  I don’t imagine I’ll reach safety, that I’ll emerge

  from this profound disaster.

  My old friend, dear friend,

  leave me in this dream of winter—

  it’s possible, who knows,

  that I can soothe my soul and body.

  If a gentle spring breeze

  bringing the green of new growth

  should waft across my dried-up nerves

  my body might bear fruit.

  *

  We weep honey

  we smile poison69

  We’re content to be miserable

  we’re miserably content

  We’ve washed our hands in blood

  we’ve washed blood from our hands

  And nothing came of either

  as we weep we smile

  It was eight years, but


  we didn’t know what it meant

  Children in a line, we knew nothing

  of how and why

  In the garden, like a storm,

  we snapped off every twig

  From the vine’s chandelier

  we broke off each bunch of grapes

  If the tree flourished

  it was a stubborn tree

  We broke its branches,

  tore up its roots

  Longing for war

  we brought on disaster

  Now, regretting what we’ve done

  we long for peace

  We broke from their bodies

  heads and wings

  Looking to put things right

  we’re busy grafting

  Will it fly

  will it live

  This wing we sew back on

  this head we’re tying on?

  Lobat Vala

  Born 1930

  Born in Tehran, Lobat Vala was associated as a young poet with both Simin Behbahani (this page) and Forugh Farrokhzad (this page). Her poetry achieved wide popularity when she was still young, and a number of her poems were used as lyrics for popular songs. She found herself profoundly out of sympathy with the social policies of the Islamic Republic established in 1979, and in 1980 moved to Melbourne, Australia, where she lived from 1980 to 1984; she earned an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Melbourne. In 1984 she moved to London, where she now lives.70

  *

  Footprint

  I went to see him the next morning

  My cheeks bright red with last night’s shame

  Telling myself tales of need and passion—

  His gaze was a devilish flame

  I’d words of apology on my lips

  Embarrassment made my heart beat faster

  My flesh was a sore inflamed with sadness

  My chest hid a seething disaster

  Quietly I said, “Can I ask you

  To erase my image from your mind?

  The event that happened between us,

  Please let it disperse on the wind.”

  His gaze burned my eyes; that stolen kiss

  Made his passion, like a flower, expand—

  He smiled at my tears so kindly

  And touched his lips then with his hand,

  “There is a gentle footprint here

  Left by the kiss we can’t reclaim—

  My caravan of grief has gone,

  It’s been replaced by passion’s flame;

  “I can’t forget you while my lips

  Still bear that kiss’s burning trace

  And even though the passion fades

  Still I’ll be lost in your embrace.”

  Ah me! Would that I could forever

  Brand him into my memory—

  But down the days’ long road love fled,

  No trace of it remains in me.71

  *

  That friend who boasted of his pure sincerity

  Had nothing in his purse but rank hypocrisy,

  My hair’s turned white, but even so I was naïve

  Enough to tell myself he really wanted me.

  *

  Filthy

  Old and tired and silent

  my shoulders weighed down with grief and care

  far from my country and friends

  impatient, in despair

  I wait

  in a dream’s quiet solitude,

  broken winged, my soul grown faint,

  on the black screen of my fearful mind I paint

  the color of light

  I draw flowers and fruit—

  the memory of childhood’s streets

  the memory of green years.

  The years of folly and craziness

  won’t leave my mind,

  the dream of good memories, regret

  for past happiness, days with no sunset,

  they’ll never leave my mind.

  My city that has no spring,

  in mourning for light

  with night’s black veil drawn over its head . . .

  I cannot believe that the backs of my dreamed-of heroes

  are bent beneath this weight of sorrow

  I cannot believe it—

  the skies of my city were not so grief-stricken!

  My head whirls with this question:

  Who stole the sun from my house?

  How did a devil of darkness manage this deed?

  Is it that kindness is asleep?

  From within a mirror—

  apart from which there’s nothing left

  that speaks my language, feels as I do—

  dread strikes me:

  “That deceitful, shameless filth,

  the one who stole the sun

  from the sky above your house, was no one

  but you.”

  *

  Reed-bed

  I’m going to teach fish

  How to live among reeds,

  Just as a bird that feeds

  On fish once taught me how

  To live among slime and weeds.

  *

  Still Young

  My glass still holds a drop of wine

  My mouth knows sweet and bitter as still mine

  I drink the wine still from the vat of our existence

  Still hear dawn’s chirping chorus in the distance

  On water still see moonlight’s splendor glint

  Still on the breeze catch rose and pennyroyal’s scent

  My body’s fire still burns within my memory

  My sense of touch is still with me

  I wait for spring still, still plant seeds,

  Still follow where light leads . . .

  Still I’m in love with tales that rouse and stir us

  And still with hope sing every song and chorus

  My poetry still seeks for love

  And still—if wearily and lamely now—

  I hope to see the Simorgh72

  Upward I go, toward the peak,

  Still longing for the Friend I seek

  Still . . .

  Come then, and smash my mirror against sorrow’s stone

  Look! I’m still young

  Forugh Farrokhzad

  1934–67

  Forugh Farrokhzad’s father was a military officer, and seems to have had little sympathy with his daughter’s artistic ambitions. In 1951, at the age of sixteen, she fell in love with the satirist Parviz Shapour, married. and gave birth to a son (Kamyar) a year later. She was divorced from her husband in 1954, and lost custody of Kamyar. In 1958 she began a relationship with the writer and film-maker Ebrahim Golestan, which lasted until her death in a car crash at the age of thirty-two. Her poetry’s technical innovations, as well as their sexually explicit frankness about women’s inner lives, made her notorious in her own lifetime; her writings won her many admirers and imitators, and have made her the best-known Iranian Persian-language woman poet of the twentieth century both within Iran and outside of it. She made a highly respected documentary film, The House Is Black, in 1962 about a leper colony in Azerbaijan; while working on this film she adopted the son of two of the colony’s inhabitants.73

  *

  Captive74

  I want you, and I know my heart’s desire,

  To hold you in my arms, will never come to me;

  You are the sky that’s clear and bright—and I’m

  A captive bird, a cage’s corner’s home to me

  And from these cold gray bars I gaze

  With longing and with wonder at your face;

  I think that help will come, and that I’ll spread
/>
  My wings, and fly toward you from this place

  I think that in a moment when the jailer’s careless

  From this silent cell I’ll fly up and be free

  And I shall laugh then in the jailer’s face

  And start my life with you there next to me

  And then I think I know I’ll never have

  The courage to escape this cage; it’s clear

  That even if my jailer would allow it

  I lack the strength to fly away from here

  Each morning here, behind the cage’s bars,

  A child looks at me, and then smiles at me,

  And if I start to sing a cheerful song

  He forms his lips into a kiss for me

  And if, O sky, I one day want to leave

  This silent prison cell and fly away

  What shall I say to that child’s weeping eyes?

  “Forgive me, I’m a captive bird,” I’ll say

  I am a candle, with my burning heart

  I fill with light the ruins that surround me;

  And if I choose now to be dark and silent

  I will undo the household that’s around me

  *

  The Ring

  A little girl giggled and said,

  “This golden ring, what is its secret?

  What’s the secret of this ring that grips

  My finger so tightly? Take it!

  “What’s the secret of this shining ring,

  This ring that’s so bright and glittering?”

  The man was puzzled and replied,

  “But your good fortune, life itself, is in this ring.”

  And everyone cried, “Congratulations!”

  The little girl said, “I’m sorry that

  I ever doubted what it meant.”

  The years went by. One night

  A woman looked down sadly at the shining ring

  And saw there all the days when she had hoped

  To have her husband’s faithful love . . .

  Hopes that had come to nothing, nothing at all.

  With what bewilderment the woman cried,

  “Alas, I see this ring that glitters still,

  That shines like this, it is the ring

  Of servitude, of slavery.”75

  *

  Sin

  I sinned, a sin that was all pleasure,

  Within the fiery warmth of his embrace

  I sinned within his arms

  That were like iron, ardent, fierce.

  Within that intimately silent darkness

  I stared at his mysterious eyes,

  My heart convulsive in my trembling breast

  As I perceived the longing in his eyes

  Within that intimately silent darkness