Elyas Alavi: Whispers at the bed of an obstinate prophet
Translation from the Persian/Farsi to English by Zuzanna Olsweska & Fatemeh Shams
حشرات را شکنجه نکنید
کتابها
کتابهای مفلوج رازهایشان را برای همه فاش میکنند
پلهها
پلههای روسپی به هر پوتینی پا میدهند.
تصّور اینکه
باد پنجره را باز خواهد کرد
و بوی بهار در اتاق خواهد پیچید
تصوّر اینکه
کسی که دوستش داری، عاشق خواهد شد
درست درلحظهای
كه مورچههای سرباز، چشمهایت را برای ملکه میبرند
تصوّر اینکه
ساعت دوباره زنگ خواهد زد
زندگی ادامه خواهد داشت
نگرانم میکند
نگران چون دزدی که پایش به میز میخورد
نگران چون آخرین وسوسه های ابلیسی غمگین،
بر بستر پیامبری لجوج
□
قرار نبود مردهها حرف بزنند
امّا از من به شما نصیحت
“هرگز حشرات را شکنجه نکنید”.
Don’t Torture Insects
Books
The paralysed books reveal their secrets to one and all.
Steps
The prostitute steps give themselves gladly to every boot.
The thought that
The wind will blow open the window
and the scent of
spring will creep into the room.
The thought that
Your beloved will fall in love
exactly at the moment that
the soldier ants
carry your eyes away to the queen.
The thought that
the clock will strike two
and life will go on
makes me anxious
Anxious as a burglar whose foot bumps into a table, clumsily
Anxious as the last temptations a sorrowful satan
whispers at the bed of an obstinate prophet.
The dead aren’t supposed to speak
But a piece of advice from me to you:
Never torture insects.
دلتنگي
ای شعر من
تو نیز آواره ای
روزی در ” کابل ” دود می شوی
روزی در ” پاریس” به زندان می افتی
روز دیگر در ” ناروو”
بند بندت
پاره پاره می شود
ای شعر من
تو نیز گرسنه ای
چون ” بكوا “
که لبان خشکش را به مسافران نشان می دهد
چون شهناز که گیس هاش را می فروشد
به نانی سرد
چون رئیس جمهور که ما را می فروشد
به نانی گرم
ای شعر من
تو نیز دلتنگی
و سرما همه را خواهد کُشت.
My poem
My poem
You, too, are an exile
One day you go up in smoke in Kabul
One day you’re thrown into prison in Paris
Another day in Nauru
your verses
are torn, torn apart.
My poem
You, too, are hungry
Like the Bakwa plain which offers its dry lips to the travellers
Like Shahnaz who hawks her tresses for a cold piece of bread
Like the president who sells us
for a hot piece of bread
Oh, my poem
You, too, are homesick
And the cold is going to kill us all.
Note: The Bakwa is a vast, hot plain between Kandahar and Kabul, where many travellers have been killed or wandered astray
دیگرگونه
آن شب
آن شب که دراز کشیده بودی
نگاه کردم بر تو
و سرم را میان دستانم گرفتم
که چگونه خوابیده ای در اتاقم؟
که بیست و یک ماه از هم دوریم.
یک تکه ماه هم باریده بود از کلکین
و می توانستم تنت را ببینم
که گس بود و غزل بود.
آن طرف تر نشسته بود “موتزارت” بر چوکی پلاستیکی
پیانو می زد
و دیگران بسیاری نگاه می کردند از میان چوب های سقف
تمام شب نگاه کردیم تو را
و زیبایی تو را
صبح
صبح رفتن بود
پرسیدی: “برمی گردی”؟
نگاهت نکردم
“نمی دانم”
و نشستم در تاکسی
تاکسی دور شد
نگاه نکردم به پشت سر
که عشق ما دیگرگونه بود
و غمگین و پنهان بود.
Another kind
That night
As you lay down
I looked at you
And took my head in my hands.
I thought: how can you be sleeping in my room?
We had been apart twenty-one months.
A piece of moon drizzled in from the window
and I could see your body, tender as a ghazal.
Mozart, sitting a little further away on a plastic chair, played piano,
many others watched from cracks in the ceiling’s woods.
Watched you for the entire night
in all your beauty.
Morning was morning of departure.
You asked: will I come back?
I did not look at you.
“I do not know”- I said.
And sat in the taxi.
The taxi left,
I did not look back.
Our love was of another kind,
Gloomy, concealed.
Elyas Alavi’s practice is interdisciplinary bridging elements from poetry to visual arts, from archive to everyday events with the intention to address issues around trauma, memory, identity, displacement, social and political crises.
He reflects upon his background as a displaced Hazara (a marginalized ethnic group originally from Afghanistan), and uses his particular experiences and contemplations as an epistemological model for the dislocation of people and collective memories.
Alavi graduated from a Master of Visual Arts at the University of South Australia in 2016 and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) in 2013, and has exhibited at IFA (Kabul), Mohsen Gallery (Tehran), Robert Kananaj (Toronto), Firstdraft (Sydney) and Chapter House Lane (Melbourne) as well as AceOpen, Felt Space, Nexus Arts, CACSA Project Space (all Adelaide). He is the recipient of a 2019 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship. Alavi has published three poetry books in Iran and Afghanistan. He regularly runs art and poetry workshops in schools and community centres in Adelaide.
In 2020, 4A Digital is