2 poems by: Nosratollah Massoudi

Like Last Year

By Nosratollah Massoudi
Translated From Persian by Mahnaz Badihian

I come to visit you
Without flowers or chocolates
Like Last Year

By Nosratollah Massoudi

I come to visit you

Without flowers or chocolates

You see that I have flipped through your hair

So many times I am dark

You stare at me

And I become a sky that

fists of stars are thrown in its face

However the gardens in his sleeves

Are ashamed of empty baskets

I come to visit you

Without flowers or chocolates

Don’t take it personally

That they wanted us to be

Like last year, jobless

The Smell of a Wet Pussy willow

By Nostratollah Massoudi

Till the old memories lose color

Your shoulders will fold away

The dreams of that blue dress

The dear aroma of wet pussy willows

Will wrap the taste of a virgin kiss

Under the sleepless bed sheet

Parmida, is it from the light of your shoulder’s

That the open sun, again, with closed eyes

And the uprising of your tresses,

Has closed the way to these

Tired eyes?

That without seeing

From all four corners

I am whipped

And again I catch flight

With your smile

Then let them whip

I am the one that the Angel’s dust kneads

And without love

I won’t become a humane

Till I can knit your perfume

In the body of this earth

So tell them to whip

But ask them to tell me

Which brides’ dress I should fold

Carefully

So the perfume of the algae

Around Zayandeh Rud

Won’t flow away from your veins

And my dreams next to your bosom

Stay flowing

Translated From Persian by Mahnaz Badihian