Sohrab Rahimi

Born in 1962 in Central Iran, Sohrab Rahimi has lived in Sweden since 1986. He has been publishing his poems in Swedish magazins and journals since 1989 and has contributed to Iranian diaspora literary journals . He was the editor of Persian periodical, Asar, published between 1996 and 1998.

Rahimi also writes in Swedish and has published poetry, critic and essays in Swedish journals. He is a member of the Swedish Writers’ Association, Swedish Critics’ Centre, and the Centre of Literary Translators of Sweden. He has also been invited as guest speaker in colleges and universities.

His poetry books include:

The House of Dreams, published in Persian in Gothenburg in 1994,

The Spoiled Kernels of Time, published in Persian and Swedish in Stockholm in 1995.

The white ointment, published in Persian and Swedish in Stockholm in 1998.

A letter to you,The white ointment, published in Persian and in Tehran in 2006.

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5 poems are translated by Leila Farjami and 8 poems was translated by

Ph.D. Peyman Vahabzadeh(Vancouver University)

updated at 24 december 2009.Malmo,SWEDEN.

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Translated by Leila Farjami

Sohrab Rahimi

Lonely Rooms

And embarking
was a bitter journey
in continuance along time.

Concealed
behind the angle of dusk,
I sat watching my own death
And I journeyed
through the lonely rooms
up to the dampened windows
through the margin of imagination
up to the shadows of death.
I journeyed
in the context of silence.
I became uninterrupted in the frame corners.
I went in the wind
I became impatient
To the wind
I lost all. *

*A figurative translation of a Persian expression “being carried on the wind” which

means losing everything one owns.

The Corridor of Waiting

What has died in me?
that I forget the time
And in front of me
the space gets blackened.

The rain
squashes my pieces
dispersing them onto the wind.
Till the sun comes
my eastern skin will wither
And peel off in the corridor of waiting
with its dark depth
Engulfing the voice
the image
engulfing
and drowning me
in the frame of an exhausted voice
which desiccated my youth
Pouring it on a path
awaiting the arrival of the one
who will never come.

On the Wing of Galaxy

I write on the wind
from the tongue of leaves
from the tongue of boughs.
Your hair is reflected
on the passage of memory
And the perfume of your breaths
drips on the moment’s wing.
The turn of the heel
on the alley’s sheet
And mesmerized by the footstep,
twisting of the knife
on the plate
and the cracking of the fog in the frame.

In the depth of loneliness
heart’s image turns into stone
on the wing of galaxy.

The Moment of Disintegration

I have sat here
down in the depth of the chair
And I look at you
concealed in the peak of shadows.

Look!
Here is the earth’s moment of extinction
under my feet,
Look!
Here the time escapes beneath my feet,
It has been a long time
since I wrote a poem.
From here, where I am
I repeat your song in my heart.

If you look
you’ll see the skeleton of my youth
behind the desks of habitude.
Here,
Is my moment of disintegration.

The Nightmare of Consciousness

Come
Sign off the moments somehow
around this page.
Writing, awaiting, and spinning
of the clock hands
around my ruins.
Believe me
There’s nothing wrong with me
I am only dying a bit.
Now, dissect me,
if you desire not,
Follow my funeral procession.
I have been born out of silence
and the loneliness of moments
And I have passed the lonely moments
to lose myself within you.
The black grids,
Dot,
Line,
Circle
repeat themselves.
Doors,
Walls,
And chairs have fixed their eyes on your arrival.
Pass through the sound
and beyond the wound,
Find me behind the scorched reds.
Every night,
behind the strolls of the rain
on the white page of the wind
someone hangs himself
in my dreams.

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Translated by: Ph.d. Peyman Vahabzadeh

A Letter to You

I write this letter so that you know

I, too, once used to sleep on these words

and used to tinker with the hour

so that I’d find the forgotten language.

But in each try, the tread of words would slip through my fingers,

bumping into the arm of a table covered with untold words and stories.

Each time I expected you to believe me

although your path laid on the other side of the event

and although I fell prey to my inevitable journeys.

Shredded

sleep escaped with your memory

through the cracks in the night.

I taught how to pronounce my name

to strangers in the land of winds

where they didn’t know

that I’d stolen my brother’s name,

that my life was but an endless and unrewarding nightmare,

that I envied the soberity of the dead,

and that I returned

—crushing the shadows of night

under the feet of fever—

to the day for no reason.

No one knew

that Sohrab was the pseudonym of a shadow

behind a frozen window

that delays my death for no reason.

Awaiting you,

I counted all the bus stops in the neighbourhood,

and searched for your name between the pages of all books.

I just wanted to find myself

you’re my excuse for existence

in those remote nights and in a wall’s memory of a hand that touched it

I wrote a poem jointly with my shadow

so that you’d know I wasn’t too lonely.

Now that you’re no more,

I am standing alone

Here, in the queue, in front of the post office

at six pm

waiting to mail the letter.

The Giraffe

As I leaned over the Zayandeh Rud,†

I opened my arms across the river bank

remembering that being a giraffe

wasn’t so bad after all

especially while your umbrella leaks,

and you aren’t wearing a hat

under this pouring sky.

The moon shines on you

and there is a dark

of the quality of night,

and you’re terrified of not having wings

when you’re filled with the urge to fly and reach.

I filled myself with the river

and empty of it then,

so that I’d lose myself in your tender nights.

And you stood at the pond

amidst the dark

staring in silence at the night’s skin

waiting for a hand

to slip on the surface of your flesh and hair

so that your bones shiver

in anticipation of a visit.

A restless patient’s wait,

when you lean over my breath

staring at the distance.

I had locked up my hands in pockets

so you wouldn’t see I was a giraffe

without a riverbank

or an alarm clock to wake me.

Fairwell

Dark and quiet,

the night

a screen on our eyes

there is no sound but silence

and the memory of childhood laughter and joy.

Someone from the heart of the time

calls us

as we stand amidst circles and colours.

Street lights climb the heights of the sky

as streets are filled with moving lights.

Sitting on sidewalk curbs,

children, women and men,

they all paint

a better future on the walls of the city.

Time is a fountain that pictures downfall

in its trajectory.

The days are saturated with the sun

and with heat, sweat and the smell of fruits in the market

and the many unemployed shoppers

who are content with the jingles of their change.

The Zayandeh Rud’s bedrock

is full of bygone dreams

and thirsty flowers

have risen to the highest clouds.

I pass through the allies of memory

wearing my raincoat

and sunglasses.

Time is a circular line

that surrounds my relics

and the rain

a faraway dream

that can only be found

in a summery sleep and a tree’s waiting

A cat crosses over the flowers of a rug

a bird pushes its beak unto the window

we fall from the branches of flight

hitting the apogee of the fall.

I have so much faith in death

that I won’t attempt a suicide.

I welcome the spring

with a bouquet that smells like autumn,

like a rain wishing to die in water

I’m passionate about reaching the sea and the river’s dream

waiting to cross the blue of your cheeks

and my dream’s flowing away from my sleep

Waiting the green visit with you

the red meeting in the white of warm days

waiting to bloom in your presence

and breaking in silence.

The blue goblet of presence

you, Leila of distant dreams

and in slip into sleep

in a long wait.

A Blank Page

How patient this blank page is.

It never grows weary of this long wait

and its back never seems to break

under the weight of the words it’s loaded with.

It lies on the breadth of horizon,

going through the seconds

and letters and words,

to find the shape of its body

from the top

to the unbounded meadow

filled with silence and waiting.

Parallel Platforms

Two Parallel platforms

and the waiting train

We’ve locked our gazes on one another’s silence

In just a moment, the train will depart

and we’ll be leafed by the wind

Two parallel lines

on opposite sides

we’re still standing

no train at the platform

no awaiting eye

Now, there’s only me

and your dream

awaiting the train

and the wind

that leafs through us

amidst platforms and silences.

Wherefrom in the World

Wherefrom in the world

was I thrown here

to squeeze myself amidst countless words and letters

I can write myself

jump over the words

and stare at the broken image of a destiny

in the mirror

I expected you to look me in the eyes

what for?

you don’t even know how to pronounce my name properly.

I find myself everyday

between the mirrors and distances that can never be filled

I found myself parallel to your land

in the world’s outlandia

to find what I mean in a broken image

Liali La

Drink!

It’s the night to forget

I will drink to your memory

and disperse my name in the wind

and leave my poem to the birds

that know the sense of distance.

Wherefrom in the world

was I thrown to you

to find myself here amidst fresh words and solitary images?

And what for,

you say.

You don’t know

that only words will never betray us.

Why Not?

Why not?

I’ve crossed the borders of insanity

so many times

without a passport.

Now, I’m sitting here

imitating intellectuals.

I stack word upon word

to give you a bunch of mouthful words

so that you’ll believe me.

I haven’t lost my mind

I am saner than you are

and than the God

you believe in.

I’m small

small

I’m brief

brief

like a breeze

or the sunset

I’m bitter

like the life potion

that came too late.

My Poem and Death

The seconds are still chasing us

Let’s read our poems backwards

to fool time

we’ve been ripped off anyway

now we’ve got to pay taxes for our being poet.

part-time or full-time

it makes no difference

we have risen against an eternity

that is intent upon crushing us.

A world that does not stand poets

and us,

who cannot stand the weight of the world

only words don’t betray us.

Happy corpses can make us laugh

not that we didn’t laugh at the bitter time

we, who were bitter ourselves,

although they wanted to write us sweet.

Our beginning was a nail on the coffin of our end.

We lived part-time

though our death came full-time.

† A river in Central Iran.

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