I wish children didn’t die

“I wish children didn’t die.

 I wish they would be temporarily elevated to the skies until the war ends. 

Then they would return home safe, 

and when their parents would ask them: “where were you?”, 

they would say: “we were playing in the clouds”.

– Ghassan Kanafani

Child of Europe

1

We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day.
Who in May admire trees flowering
Are better than those who perished.

We, who taste of exotic dishes,
And enjoy fully the delights of love,
Are better than those who were buried.

We, from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires
On which the winds of endless autumns howled,
We, who remember battles where the wounded air roared in
paroxysms of pain.
We, saved by our own cunning and knowledge.

By sending others to the more exposed positions
Urging them loudly to fight on
Ourselves withdrawing in certainty of the cause lost.

Having the choice of our own death and that of a friend
We chose his, coldly thinking: Let it be done quickly.

We sealed gas chamber doors, stole bread
Knowing the next day would be harder to bear than the day before.

As befits human beings, we explored good and evil.
Our malignant wisdom has no like on this planet.

Accept it as proven that we are better than they,
The gullible, hot-blooded weaklings, careless with their lives.

2
Treasure your legacy of skills, child of Europe.
Inheritor of Gothic cathedrals, of baroque churches.
Of synagogues filled with the wailing of a wronged people.
Successor of Descartes, Spinoza, inheritor of the word ‘honor’,
Posthumous child of Leonidas
Treasure the skills acquired in the hour of terror.

You have a clever mind which sees instantly
The good and bad of any situation.
You have an elegant, skeptical mind which enjoys pleasures
Quite unknown to primitive races.

Guided by this mind you cannot fail to see
The soundness of the advice we give you:
Let the sweetness of day fill your lungs
For this we have strict but wise rules.

3
There can be no question of force triumphant
We live in the age of victorious justice.

Do not mention force, or you will be accused
Of upholding fallen doctrines in secret.

He who has power, has it by historical logic.
Respectfully bow to that logic.

Let your lips, proposing a hypothesis
Not know about the hand faking the experiment.

Let your hand, faking the experiment
No know about the lips proposing a hypothesis.

Learn to predict a fire with unerring precision
Then burn the house down to fulfill the prediction.

4
Grow your tree of falsehood from a single grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality.

Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself
So the weary travelers may find repose in the lie.

After the Day of the Lie gather in select circles
Shaking with laughter when our real deeds are mentioned.

Dispensing flattery called: perspicacious thinking.
Dispensing flattery called: a great talent.

We, the last who can still draw joy from cynicism.
We, whose cunning is not unlike despair.

A new, humorless generation is now arising
It takes in deadly earnest all we received with laughter.

5
Let your words speak not through their meanings
But through them against whom they are used.

Fashion your weapon from ambiguous words.
Consign clear words to lexical limbo.

Judge no words before the clerks have checked
In their card index by whom they were spoken.

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason.
The passionless cannot change history.

6
Love no country: countries soon disappear
Love no city: cities are soon rubble.

Throw away keepsakes, or from your desk
A choking, poisonous fume will exude.

Do not love people: people soon perish.
Or they are wronged and call for your help.

Do not gaze into the pools of the past.
Their corroded surface will mirror
A face different from the one you expected.

7
He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.

You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.

Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark.
You can fill them with any feature desired.

Proud of dominion over people long vanished,
Change the past into your own, better likeness.

8
The laughter born of the love of truth
Is now the laughter of the enemies of the people.

Gone is the age of satire. We no longer need mock.
The sensible monarch with false courtly phrases.

Stern as befits the servants of a cause,
We will permit ourselves sycophantic humor.

Tight-lipped, guided by reasons only
Cautiously let us step into the era of the unchained fire.

--- Czeslaw Milosz

अंतिम समय जब कोई नहीं जायेगा साथ

अंतिम समय जब कोई नहीं जायेगा साथ
एक वृक्ष जाएगा
अपनी गौरैयों-गिलहरियों से बिछुड़कर
साथ जाएगा एक वृक्ष

अग्नि में प्रवेश करेगा वही मुझ से पहले
"कितनी लकड़ी लगेगी"
शमशान की टालवाला पूछेगा
ग़रीब से ग़रीब भी सात मन तो लेता ही है

लिखता हूं अंतिम इच्छाओं में
कि बिजली के दाहघर में हो मेरा संस्कार
ताकि मेरे बाद
एक बेटे और एक बेटी के साथ
एक वृक्ष भी बचा रहे संसार में।

--- नरेश सक्सेना

I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,

I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,

I am not your project or any exotic museum object,
I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,
nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,
I am not your cannon fodder or the invisible worker,
or your entertainment at India Habitat Centre,
I am not your field, your crowd, your history,
your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,
I refuse, reject, resist your labels,
your judgments, documents, definitions,
your models, leaders and patrons,
because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space, your words, maps, figures, indicators,
they all create illusions and put you on a pedestal,
from where you look down upon me.
So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,
I make my own tools to fight my own battle,
For me, my people, my world and my Adivasi self!

--- Abhay Flavian Xaxa*

कविवर

मैं पहली पंक्ति लि‍खता हूँ
और डर जाता हूँ राजा के सिपाहियों से
पंक्ति को काट देता हूँ

मैं दूसरी पंक्ति लिखता हूँ
और डर जाता हूँ गुरिल्‍ला बाग़ियों से
पंक्ति को काट देता हूँ

मैंने अपनी जान की ख़ातिर
अपनी हज़ारों पंक्तियों की
इस तरह हत्‍या की है

उन पंक्तियों की रूहें
अक्‍सर मेरे चारों ओर मँडराती रहती हैं
और मुझसे कहती हैं : कविवर!
कवि हो या कविता के हत्‍यारे?

सुना था इंसाफ़ करने वाले हुए कई इंसाफ़ के हत्‍यारे
धर्म के रखवाले भी सुना था कई हुए
ख़ुद धर्म की पावन आत्‍मा की
हत्‍या करने वाले

सिर्फ़ यही सुनना बाक़ी था
और यह भी सुन लिया
कि हमारे वक़्त में ख़ौफ़ के मारे
कवि भी हो गए
कविता के हत्‍यारे

~ सुरजीत पातर (अनुवाद : अनूप सेठी) 

15 बेहतरीन शेर - 10 !!!

1.  एक बार तो यूँ होगा, थोड़ा सा सुकूं होगा, न दिल में कसक होगी, न सर में जुनूँ होगा. - गुलज़ार  

2. मेहरबानी को मोहब्बत नहीं कहते ऐ दोस्त, आह! अब मुझसे तेरी रंजिश-ए-बेजा भी नहीं - फ़िराक़ गोरखपुरी

3. शिकवा समुनदरों का कोई किस तरह करे, साहिल भी ख़ुद नहीं थे सफ़ीनों के ख़ैर-ख़्वाह

4. निगाह पड़ने न पाए यतीम बच्चों की, ज़रा छुपा के खिलौने दुकान में रखना - महबूब ज़फ़र

5. दिल दे तो इस मिज़ाज का परवरदिगार दे, जो रंज की घड़ी भी ख़ुशी से गुज़ार दे - दाग़ देहलवी

6. कभी चराग़, कभी तीरगी से हार गये, जो बे-शऊर थे वे हर किसी से हार गये...!!! - अनवर जलालपुरी

7- फ़ितूर होता है हर उम्र में जुदा-जुदा, खिलौना, माशूक़ा, रूतबा, ख़ुदा...!!!

8- तिरी मौजूदगी में तेरी दुनिया कौन देखेगा, तुझे मेले में सब देखेंगे मेला कौन देखेगा -नज़ीर बनारसी
 
9- एक आँसू भी हुकूमत के लिए ख़तरा है, तुम ने देखा नहीं आँखों का समुंदर होना. - मुनव्वर राणा

10 - तमाम उम्र हम इक दूसरे से लड़ते रहे, मगर मरे तो बराबर में जा के लेट गए ~ मुनव्वर राना

11- चाह लेते या मुकम्मल ही किनारा करते, अपने हिस्से का कोई काम तो सारा करते - उमैना यूसफ़

12- वाइज़ को जो आदत है पेचीदा-बयानी की, हैरां है कि रिंदों की हर बात खरी क्यों है ! - असद मुल्तानी

13-  मेरे इश्क से मिली तेरे हुस्न को ये शोहरत, तेरा ज़िक्र ही कहाँ था मेरी दास्तान से पहले ! - जाकिर खान

14-  अज़ीम लोग थे टूटे तो इक वक़ार के साथ, किसी से कुछ न कहा बस उदास रहने लगे - इक़बाल अशहर

15- एक बार हम भी रहनुमा बन के देख लें,  फिर उसके बाद क़ौम का जो कुछ भी हाल हो...!!! - दिलावर फ़िग़ार

Like a Cloud, We Travel

Wiped out by every wind over Gaza,
we are scattered on this earth,
footsteps in the desert.

We do not, or cannot, know
when and how to return
to the homes
our ancestors loved
for centuries.

Like clouds,
we try to give shade and rain:
the best we can.

But deep down, we do not know
whether we even belong
to where we happen to exist.

Like clouds,
we might visit our homes
without knowing that they still are
ours.

Invaders have changed much
of our landscape,
much or our lives.

--- Mosab Abu Toha