Fog Song
I rip up my train ticket
بلیت قطار را پاره م یکنم
و با آخرین گله ی گوز ن ها
به خانه برمی گردم
آن قدر شاعرم
بلیت قطار را پاره م یکنم
و با آخرین گله ی گوز ن ها
به خانه برمی گردم
آن قدر شاعرم
!که شاخ هایم شکوفه داده است
و آوازم
:چون مهی بر دریاچه می گذرد
شلیک هر گلوله خشمی است
که از تفنگ کم می شود
سینه ام را آماده کرد ه ام
.تا تو مهربان تر شوی
I rip up my train ticket
and with the last herd of deer
return home.
I am so much a poet
that my antlers have blossomed
and my song
passes across the lake like fog:
Shooting each bullet is a rage
released with a shotgun.
I have prepared the trunk of my body
for the possibility of your kindness.
_____
From Lean Against This Late Hour by Garous Abdolmalekian, to be published on April 14, 2020 by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Garous Abdolmalekian. Translation copyright © 2020 by Idra Novey and Ahmad Nadalizadeh.
Garous Abdolmalekian was born in 1980, days after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, and lives in Tehran. He is the author of five poetry books and the recipient of the Karnameh Poetry Book of the Year Award and the Iranian Youth Poetry Book Prize. His poems have been translated into Arabic, French, German, Kurdish, and Spanish. Abdolmalekian is presently the editor of the poetry section at Chesmeh Publications in Tehran and the executive editor of publications at the Youth Poetry Office in Iran.
