Penchant for Poems

Ghazaliyat by Khaqani

“lovers seek none other.... than a risk-all lover

Good hearts only want.. an all-or-nothing lover.

While love reigns, reason is under ban

For folk won’t tolerate rival claims in love’s domain

There are those like me with nothing left them

But clipped wings and

                                Wide eyes fixed on flame.

Stoke-hearts fired to fly flame, we

Are but moths driven to love’s flame.

Yet you’ll not catch me flying

Outside my love’s sacrosanct seraglio.

They don’t call that soul-searing spike

Oppression. They seek not shrieks

From that world-burning tulip,

Should i be slain by the flirt,

                Of his eyes twain lovely, take care—

                Lest lovers want my blood’s spurt

For his twin twinkling eyes.

This is the moral law in the lovers’ church;

None shall seek to gain

Blood-price for those in love slain

Speak not a word to Khaqani

Less its main line be love,

Lovers won’t hear a song sung

                From the nightingale’s tongue

                ‘less roses be in bloom and spring be sprung




My day gave up its reign to night
       my life came up to my lip,
       made a desperate last-ditch pilgrimage
                                              of the lip;
       my soul rose all the way up to my throat
          (and threatened to go)
       hearing me over and over
       going, "O my God! O my God!"
        made the sky start miming my moan
        my irksome tune of  "O my God!" sing.
love came and goblet gave the way to goblet.
cups raising a hue and cry.
       draining away that wine, it
       maintaining an anti-faith stance.
each time i drew a draught
       but higher i got. this time
       i raised the double-sized chalice
       and on my side, met your lips.
it was no struggle at all for us.
we had no need to spur on our steeds.
i went as far as her door, met
       and talked with her guardian who said
       "what brought on this passion so mad?"
her neighbor overheard my sigh and said,
"don't you think Khaqani is a bit fever-touched?"