شیما کلباسی

Baristas

When all the cafés smelled bitter from coffee
and worn-out by the wooden polish chairs,
and penniless college students,
and tasteless paper cups,
somewhere behind the counter of the eleventh street café,
behind the croissant fridge, and marshmallows, and lime cake
under the eyes of waiting customers
your hands were picking the tattooed leaves off my back.

Leva Zand
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

With You

Your tender revolt
Contained by the forbidden fruit
Pounds in red
And your eyes’ shattered diamond
A woman in seclusion
Revolves into a star
With you
On the surface of water
I am thirsty
Place the skies in your eyes
Blaze out the star
So that I can see you
The sea is peaceful
Silent…

Mehri Rahmani
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

I Am Depressed

I am depressed, ah
I am depressed from this relentless silence
From this hopeless patience
From this quiet cry, this ditch
I am depressed, ah
When will we reach the Sun!
When will we arrive at the garden?!...

Parvaneh Forouhar
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

Those Days

Those days poetry was my room
when I felt unsafe

I gravitated into its eternal sanctuary
These days
no room is safe

Cause behind every window
a clown face sneers
inside and out

Fereshteh Sari
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

MOON! LOOK AT ME!

Come up to me, trees
Like a rain immersing the fields
Come up and grow
And for that split second
My life will last

Climb down to me, sky
Seize me by your stars
With your endless, wet night
And gentle sapphire sea

Look at me moon, at the frontier
Of my ultimate love
I reflect myself in you
And to my pleasure
I see my beloved’s face.

Jens Fink-Jensen
Translation from Danish by Sheema Kalbasi

Time

That old man sitting on the bench
is you, a little boy biking around
Your hair is now white, spread
by the traces of age
and I? My youthful skin
has persistent wrinkles of regret

Mahboubeh Shadzi
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

The Unexpected Guest

Where trees ascend
And rivers descend
With birds
In this discordant urban decay
At the abyss of my chest
A cold scent arrives
That I least expect when it hits

And ice floats in the cold
Arriving with the most unknown fragrance,
Arriving from behind the glass
From behind the sealed window
In the streets, on the road

The warm air cooling down
Into shapes of scented ice,
Round or rectangular,
At the abyss of my chest

Oh, you, the masked traveler
Who arrives unexpected
To seize me,
The passing of you through me
Is not through the mouth and the lips
When you arrive
Instead of freezing in the cold,
Instead of sealing you off
My heart opens up…

Tahereh Saffarzadeh
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

Matrimony

We pass one another
I walk to the kitchen
You leave for the office
I walk to the mountain of plates and clothes
And you are off to the forest of desks or files

We pass one another
Now and again
Without a glance
And sometimes
Perchance
At night our bodies
Find time to socialize
Despite the silence
Despite the exhaustion

I know
The earth tilts against your shoulders
And the instant you are not
The sun and its heart will fade away

Farideh Hassanzadeh
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

I am the woman, who dwells in grace,
Covered and veiled but audacious.
O, you who behest me to abide by his rules
Do not veil me! Enthrone me! Thus
live the Eve and the Empress.
To zephyrs travel, those who are pretentious
Fairness and goodness are my resting place.
Not every able one is a seaman or has the face,
Not everyone disguised is as pure or chaste.

Padshah Khatoon                                                                                  Translation from Persian by Sheema kalbasi

Wake! And arrive, O darling,
I have the Tavern prepared within.
A cup of wine and a feast
And for you I have clad in bliss
These things I have crafted
From my heart and my dream

Mahasti Ganjavi                                                                                       Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

O, you who are a man of despair,
Fragile, feeble and not an heir.
You command me about, and howl without care,
But devoid of my aid you cannot
appear or even inhale air

Zaifie                                                                                                    Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

My endeavor remains in vain,
His love enslaves me yet again
Whose bravery, O but the one in need,
An ample love, the shore unseen,
Deem and caress the insolence.
When it is love you ache for to gain
Immersed in darkness and opt for the good,
Drink the poison and envision the swain.

Rabeh'eh Quzdari                                                                         Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi



THE SECRET

Locks on the bolt
Secrets behind the doors
And the moist Jasmine perfume
Panting at the night
The jar of thirst in a summer afternoon
This musky willow shade and I
These birds and I, do not sing!

Mahshid Naghashpor
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

A Rooftop Lit by the Sun

I empty a pocketful of reveries
Perhaps to deceive a philosophy
By a temple at the center of the universe
The God is knitting the words for his design
And a thousand fingers
Sift through a thousand words
But each season there is no judgment
When the earth quakes on its feet
The sun strolling on the rooftop
Will not inspire my rhymes…

Batoul Azizpour
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

Dissolving

Of the orange garden
Not much was left, days gone by
Night in the sheath of a tribute
And the heart brimming by the tune.
You are absent
And I look at the wind
At the earth, the leaves and the wall
At the face
The Cage,
Clouds,
The window
And frame
The bitter taste of water
And I trust myself to the stream.

Mina Dastgheib
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

A Day Without You

And I commenced my day
Without you or your name
I spilled you out of my tea
Out of my breakfast
From the kitchen
And didn’t nurture the plants…
So that I could witness your rage
Your name from autumn
The autumn from the field
And the field from the poems, I
Removed
I heaved you out of my memories and
The seasons and walked to the mirror
To cut short the locks you loved so
Alas! In the mirror a sunflower reflected
Your unkind frame
Outlined my face forevermore
I had become you!

Nasrin Behjati
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

Adam!

Adam!
I am lost among so many Eves
And you among so many choices
Giving life to Cain
Captivated by the earth without an Eden
How will you indeed find me?

Farzaneh Seyed Saeedi
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

Colorful Poems

A case of green colors
And a vase of red flowers
Invite me to experiment
When love loosens to the swarming sparrows

Mina Asadi
Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi

The Forbidden Gender 

The road had chuckholes

The school had veils,

And the students

Dead under their burqas in a well.

Silence sat at the back of the classroom

And under the stairs

Except to take us under.

They did not have anything else to do,

And the staircase rivets blood to the downfall

And suicide pills,

Were the only hope for the graduating students.

The world was not heavier than a cat,

And life was a black market to the men,

And we were the restricted goods

That were cudgeled in back of the stores.

In the mornings

In  black packages

We went to school

To learn

How to live in tents

And not fear the heat

And be cautious.

The eyes don’t swallow us,

Cartridges by the board foot,

Power outage,

Water shortage,

But scarves were on sale,

And beatings were low priced,

And a veil was addicted,

To a pair of eyes,

And the gray sacks we covered our bodies with

Were the uniforms that taught us

To forget about life.

Instead, we could

Die as much as we desired

At the war front

Under the rockets

By stones

That were thrown at us ever since childhood.

Principle’s veil that was home from the war fronts

And the martyred elementary school

And classmates

Who left their land like shrapnel,

Kissing was banned,

Happiness an unaccustomed term,

And the only mascara available was tears.

No one knew how to pencil

the eyes

or line around the lips,

And the only line to follow was Imam’s.

All the lines were red:

Alarm,

Fire,

War,

This is what childhood presented to me

That is not suitable for any day or night.

Starling on the tree,

The year in evil,

And that child, born in the eighties,

Who is holding her knees

And is exhaling oil exports,

Doesn’t know how to blow out

The smoke from the shockwave homework

On days that no,

No,

The stinking principle

Rings the school bell for the end of the day.

Saba Vasefi                                                                                              

Translation from Persian by Sheema Kalbasi