Informed Comment

Before time ever was,
You fashioned
the divine handiwork
of heaven and hell–
out of compassion and rage.
Your banquet is in heaven,
and I am empty-handed,
since I have no path to paradise.

trans. Juan Cole
From Whinfield 16.

0 Retweet 4 Share 11 StumbleUpon 0 Printer Friendly Send via email

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments | Print

§ 6 Responses to “Omar Khayyam 16”

• megacephalus - berlin says:

  

  02/07/2012 at 2:19 pm

  j.

  thank you for the daily ration of Khayyam!

  d.
• megacephalus - berlin says:

  

  02/07/2012 at 2:25 pm

  Reverting to a prior post… why not a drone with Assad’s name on it? Really! It would save a lot of lives… possibly… and it’s hard to see the ‘downside’…
• Comments Committee says:

  

  02/07/2012 at 7:02 pm

  This is a good one. If this was the only thing that he wrote it could have been a clue that he was really a Tibetian Buddhist who took a vow to plunge in to the depths of hell to help quench the thirst of the souls trapped there and to refuse entry in to heaven until all beings are granted entry in to heaven.
• Zara Houshmand says:

  

  02/08/2012 at 12:15 am

  These are lovely! So happy to have discovered them, thank you!
• robert says:

  

  02/08/2012 at 1:23 am

  Good poem. Here is the beginning of one by Forugh Farrokhzad:
  I don’t repent,
  thinking of this resignation, this pained surrender.
  I’ve kissed my life’s cross
  on the hills of my execution
• Merry says:

  

  02/08/2012 at 8:56 am

  Thanks so much for the poetry. Please let me know if you publish a collection of your translations.