Note from the translator: Payam Feili’s White Field is a collection of thirteen love poems. In this, his eleventh poem, Payam talks about his love, which is embedded in the social and political context that he lives in. He describes his despair on one endless Yalda night, which is celebrated in Iran on the eve of the Winter Solstice. Lamenting his lover, he also mourns deeply for political prisoners held captive by the corridors of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. Prisoners like Iranian human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari and Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
O! Boy, tender is my torso
This dark Yalda night, upon a high wall
I delve into your solitude, I delve into you
Beneath the moonlight
Through that distant forest
Deep in that listless lake
I catch a glimpse of you in the stars
Oh! How I drift like you Boy
Oh! How I anguish like you Boy
Leaving brings sorrow
Staying brings sorrow
Loitering in these abandoned streets brings sorrow
I grieve for my morning paper, vilified
I grieve for my books, bowdlerised
I mourn my Uncle Ali’s beautiful son
I mourn those somber sparrows soaked to the skin
I mourn the dark corridors of Evin
I mourn for Shiva
I mourn for Nasrin
I despair to decipher your sleeplessness
I despair your fears and your loneliness
I despair those lanky towers of paper
I despair for your fluffy naked feet
I despair for the cold of winter in your body
I despair for your flushed lips, and the clamour
I blossom, and I grow tall
O! Boy, tender is my torso
Out of spite for the beauty of my uncle’s only son, I will one day,
In the streets of the village, to the wits of my despair fall prey.
~ Payam Feili
گل می‌دم، قد می‌کشم
پسرو ساقه‌ی ریواسه تنم
شب٠یلدا، سَر٠دیوار٠بلند
به تو و غربت٠تو سَر می‌زنم
تو رو زیر نور ماه
               توی جنگلای دور
       ته٠برکه‌های خواب
تو رو رو ستاره‌ها می‌بینم
پسرو مثل تو سرگردونم
پسرو مثل خودت غمگینم؛
غم٠رÙتن
غم٠موندن
غم٠تو خیابونا ول گشتن
غم٠دسگیری روزنامه‌ی صبØ
غم٠بÙهتون به کتابا بستن
غم٠زیبایی٠تنها پسر٠عموعلی
غم گنجیشکای خیس٠هپلی
غم دالونای تاریک٠اوین
غم شیوا
غم نسرین
غم تعبیر٠نخوابیدن٠تو
غم تنهایی و ترسیدن٠تو
غم بÙرجای بلند٠کاغذی
پاهای برهنه مو وزوزی
غم سرمای زمستون تو تَنت
غم غوغا، غم سرخ٠دَهَنت
گل می‌دم، قد می‌کشم
پسرو ساقه‌ی ریواسه تنم
یه روزی از لَج٠زیبایی تنها پسر٠عمو علی
توی کوچه‌های دÙÙ‡ به سیم آخر می‌زنم
Payam Feili was born in 1985 in Kermanshah, a city in western Iran. He is a homosexual writer and poet whose works are condemned in Iran due to his sexual orientation. His first book, The Sun’s Platform, was published in Iran when he was nineteen. The book was heavily censored by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Since his subsequent works could not get through the ministry, he started to publish his books outside Iran knowing that it may cause him problems and put him in danger. He has a dozen books that haven’t been able to be published yet. One of his recent poetry books, White Field, has been published in Persian by Nogaam publishing in London in July 2013.
Details of the campaign to translate and publish Payam’s new collection can be found here.
The translator of this poem is working anonymously with Nogaam publishing to bring Payam’s writing to an international audience.
