Latif Nazemi
A Leading Modern Afghan Poet and Critic
Latif Nazemi is a leading modern Farsi/Dari poet, a great literary critic and scholar. He was born in Herat in 1947, graduated from Kabul University and later taught at the Faculty of Letters of Kabul University.
Nazemi worked for Kabul Radio as a literary critic and also prepared a popular literary program called "the Golden Scale.” He also taught Persian literature at Hambolt University in Berlin, where he studied linguistics. He has received several awards and an honorary doctorate.
Like hundreds of other Afghan intellectuals, Nazemi had to leave his homeland after the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan. Currently he lives in Frankfurt.
He has published three collections of poetry titled The Shadow and Lagoon, Wind in the Lantern, and From Orchard to Lyric. His major work in literary criticism is Modern Dari Literature in Afghanistan. Like Wasif Bakhtari, he is considered a master of modern Dari poetry and a highly revered literary figure in both classical and modern literature. He is also credited with introducing a modern ghazal form in modern Farsi/Dari literature.
A number of his poems have been translated into French, German, Russian, Arabic, Polish, and Mongolian. He has also written extensively about classical and modern Persian literature.
Covenant
(To Rumi)
In the blue moments of illumination
I am coming from Balkh to Iconium
the city of water and mirror
I see your green figure
Filling the frame of the history’s gateway
I see the poem of your voice
In the ears of the dervishes
like the cloud reading the Koran
In the ears of barren lands
In the ears of dried gardens and forests
In the green season of green lyricism
In the season of poetry, love, and chanting
A drop of tear hiding in lashes
In the mourning of the passing seasons
Here, I am at your resting place
-In the sacred zenith of Covenant-
on the golden camel of faith
I see you sitting Godlike
On the lips of the red song of “I am the Truth”
From the domed houses of Merw
To the cobbled streets of Grenada
They are chanting your songs
Like village roosters at dawn
We Will Return
We shall return
To turn our elegies into an epitaph
On the cemetery of the grape orchards of the north
On the corpse of the olive fields of the east
And on the funeral of the pines of the west
We shall return to sing the song of stone
On the tomb of Buddha
To plant a basket of anemones
On the sand-hills of Bamiyan
Someday it will grow, I know
We shall return
To mourn the anniversary of the pillage of our books
And the anniversary of the shredding of our poems
We shall return
To seize the funeral of freedom
From the geography of flog and turban
And fill the hungry mouths of guns
with dirt and gravel
Oh my traveling beloved,
Let me hold your hand
So that we may hurry to revisit Rabia
And dress the wounded throat of the poetry lady
With the black silk of your tresses
We shall return
With olive branches hanging from our laps
With our fingers twisted
Our knapsacks stuffed with the gold coins of love
From the green lyrics of love
From the songs of red canaries
Finally we shall return
(Frankfurt 2002)
The Lagoon and Shadow
Behind that old peevish-looking rock
away from the rice fields
among thistles and thorns,
lies an old lagoon, desolate and dark
Never seen by a shaft of the lunar light
far from the heaven’s reach and eye
the lagoon, haggard and consumed,
has fallen into a deep sleep
The finger branch of the old poplar
sometimes touches the water face
the ferine and howling night wind
sometimes slaps on the lagoon face
Black lizards crawl and coil
around the cold grasses’ arms
bats, spreading out their wings,
clog the path to the torpid firth
The thirsty leaves of willows and oaks
drench their lips in the lagoon’s bowl
the frogs on the shores of runnels and rills
sing an insipid song
Tiny and tenacious crawling weeds
tangle around one another’s neck
the lagoon’s weeding and wild flora
spread into the air a pungent aroma
The reed daggers, dispirited and spent,
deepen their legs into the lagoon
raise high their heads into the sky
fearing the roaring winds
not knowing, however, the ducks' seditious tricks
Every night a shadow, creeping out of the oaks,
stalks near the stagnant firth
the bats fly away from their sweet dreams
and old vultures swirl and hover around
A discarded specter of the night,
tired of the routine, but full of sin,
I whisper into the lagoon
the rueful tale of my dark desire. (Herat,1345)
Orchard Dreams of Grass
It's a strange time!
They shout war
from every minaret
from every pulpit.
They attack love.
from under every dome
And steal bread and freedom.
Listen, do you hear?
How softly
day and night cry,
with the minaret, the dome and the pulpit?
It's a strange time!
The belief police at every mosque
smells belief in your mouth.
Trimmers at every crossroad
measure belief in your beard's height.
It's a strange time.
A time when the spring
is hailed with dishes of gunpowder
And the tree,
is the earth's naked sigh.
And poverty
is the season’s common fruit.
Tell the swallow not to trust
another branch,
which may be another cage.
another tree,
which may be a guillotine for swallows.
It's a strange time!
A time when children
have no dolls to play with.
And the guards,
from behind the garden wall
take the winds to protect the flowers;
hurting memories of the pine and juniper.
May your life be short!
your luck doomed!
your palace of plunder ruined!
Another Will
If someday I have an epitaph,
Inscribe on it these words:
He was a night street chandelier.
Alas, he died before burning!
If someday I have an epitaph,
inscribe on it these words:
He was a good news from the red sun.
Alas, he set before glowing!
If someday I have an epitaph,
inscribe on it these words:
He was an exile of the alien island
with scars of the dagger of loneliness.
Alas, he was martyred before dying!
Poem of Divine
(They say silence is a sign of consent)
Silence is the susurration of untold words
Silence is like sound
Silence is the silent song of grass and flowers
Silence is the fury of words and the strike of letters
Silence is not the false calm before the storm
Silence is itself storm
Silence is itself scream
Silence is itself sound
Silence is the verse of revelation at the dawn of love
Silence is the verse of light in the night of illumination
Silence is the poem of the Divine
How so many years I asked you:
Do you love me?
You remained silent and closed your lips
And others said:
Oh man, how lucky!
Silence is the same as acquiescence
Death of a Bird
The birds flew off these windows
The crickets died pining for boughs
I know the meaning of red death--
Words of love in the throat
