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I am no longer waiting

It's sick, it's been sick for a very long time. As I sit here by its bedside,I hear it taking its last breaths. I am waiting. I only recently found out it was sick, but I was told it had been sick for a very long time. I had never seen the signs. How could I have known? It had always been that way, ever since I first met it, it had been sick. It was never well. No one told me. I am waiting. It sometimes goes into a coma and my heart stops beating, stops hoping. Is it really gone?Can this be? But it always comes back, regains consciousness; I keep on hoping. I am waiting.>>>

فراتر از باور

شما هم «عجیب‌تر از علم» می‌خوانید؟ آن مطلب را درباره مردی که از کنار یک گودبرداری ساختمانی رد می‌شده خوانده‌اید؟ همان که ناگهان می‌افتد توی گودبرداری، روی میلگردها؟ میلگردها در تنش فرو می‌روند. یکی از زیر دنده‌هایش می‌رود تو و از طرف دیگر درمی‌آید. یکی هم از کنار رانش رد می‌شود. درست یادم نیست. چند میلگرد دیگر هم در تنش فرو می‌روند. ولی مرد نمرده است. صورت مرد رو به آسمان است. بین زمین و هوا. مرد لابد آسمان را نگاه می‌کرده که ابرهایش با سرعت رد می‌شدند. مرد شاید از ناهار برمی‌گشته است. سعی می‌کند ساعتش را نگاه کند. درد از زیر سینه می‌پیچد تا زیر گلو. کارگرها بالای گود برداری مرد را نگاه می‌کنند. سر کارگر با بی‌سیم با کسی حرف می‌زند. >>>

Far away love

She was a precious soul
Her heart spacious and free
He, was an Imperial soldier
A grandiose oak tree

The two souls merged as one
In no time were they in love
Entangled was their mind and
Enchanted was their heart >>>

نمی‌توان فراموش كرد

تبلیغات انتخاباتی دو نامزد اصلی‌ جناح اصلاح طلب، آقایان كروبی و موسوی، ابعاد جدیدی به خود گرفته است. این دو كه هم برای كشاندن مردم به صحنه رأی‌گیری تلاش می‌كنند و هم برای بالا بردن سطح آرای خود با یك‌دیگر به رقابت برخاسته‌اند، مرتبا بر دامنه وعده‌های خود می‌افزایند و قشرهای جدیدی از مردم را مخاطب خود قرار می‌دهند. زنان، اقلیت‌های قومی و مذهبی، جوانان، دانشجویان، كارگران و سایر قشرهای محروم جامعه را مخاطب قرار می‌دهند، از حكومت قانون و حقوق بشر و حقوق شهروندی و رفع تبعیض و توزیع عادلانه درآمد نفت سخن می‌گویند، و بر تعهد خود به حقوق و آزادی‌های‌ مدنی تأكید می‌ورزند. در عین حال، این همه وعده‌ و وعیدها ظاهرا جوش و خروش چندانی در بین مردم ایجاد نكرده است و نگرانی نامزدها در مورد پایین بودن میزان رأی هم‌چنان ادامه دارد>>>

Life is still simple

The air outside smelled of farmland. The two-lane paved road to our hotel meandered through farms and ended a few miles before we reached it. We continued on a dirt road. “Ninety percent of the Lao live about six kilometers from a paved road,” our guide said. “And remember, the word is Lao and not Laos or Laotian. It is the name of the people, the country, the language, the music, everything.” Everything looked quaintly simple as that! >>>

A Tourist in Iran

“I love the beards,” said the man at the internet cafe to the Tourist, stroking his chin ironically. “They are very good for people like me.”
“Why's that?” asked the Tourist.
“You must have a drink. Come inside. You want a coke? Please, I insist.” He beckoned the Tourist up the stairs to the door of his cafe.
“Yes, sure. Thanks. Sorry, what's your name?”
“I am called Roozbeh. You can call me Rooz.”
Inside the cafe the Tourist took a bottle of coke and sipped on it. The two of them sat beside a desk at one end of the internet cafe. Roozbeh fiddled purposefully with his mobile phone as he stuck a straw in his bottle, as though to imply he was taking time out of his busy schedule to talk to the Tourist. >>>

تعطیلات ساندویچ

نمیدانم این خاطره ای که برایتان تعریف میکنم متعلق به کدام تعطیل ساندویچی است. منظورم اینه که اغلب روزهای سال در کشور ما تعطیل عمومی است، تا عادت میکنی بری سرکار یک دفعه می زنه و مثلاً یکشنبه تعطیل میشه و چون جمعه و پنجشنبه ها هم در ایران تعطیل است، دولت هم شنبه را که اصطلاحاً روز ساندویچی ( روز کاری گیر کرده بین دو روز تعطیل) نامیده می شود، تعطیل اعلام و یک دفعه می بینی که چهار روز متوالی تعطیل هستی. تقویم ما پر است از اینگونه تعطیلات ساندویچ. اغلب مردم از این تعطیلات برای مسافرت استفاده میکنند تا خستگی چند روزی را که به اصطلاح کار کرده اند در آورند.نمیدانم چرا من با خانواده ام به مسافرت نرفتم و عیالم به اتفاق بچه ها و همراه خانواده برادرش رهسپار شمال شدند و آن روز از خدا خواسته در منزل تنها شدم. معتادان گرامی خوب میدانند که وقتی خونه خلوت است جان میدهد برای تریاک کشی و عرق خوری و چرت و پرت گویی>>>

When Will You Return?

You came so late, Parmida!
My face and hair have turned so white
and my shoulders have sunken--
as if I have been waiting
for you in all the terminals of the world;
as though my shoulders
have wept in all the stations of the world! >>>

You Must Remember

You must remember to forgive
but not to forget
to hold on
and let go
to hold hands with the
wind blowing to the end of the earth
taking what's left and what shall remain >>>

A Privilege Long Forgotten

A vote; an amazing right capable of extraordinary change. Where a vote used to stand as something worth fighting for, we now see the great degree to which some people have lost sight of this fact. This power and control is a privilege taken for granted. How long ago it now seems that the forefathers of the United States waged a revolutionary war to declare their freedom from Great Britain and give the choice of government back to the people. How long ago it now seems that women marched the streets in demand of the rights of suffrage. How long ago it now seems that people of all different colors banded together to achieve their rights as equal citizens in the selection of their government. But the truth is, that it was not so long ago>>>

Tel Aviv's best friend

The Durban Review Conference held in Geneva in April was set to examine progress made toward the goals of the previous conference in 2001: to eliminate racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. Many expected the conference would condemn Israel's attack on Gazan civilians, but what transpired was indeed the opposite. The resolution passed in Geneva helped Israel's stance by commemorating the Holocaust. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a lot to do with this outcome, albeit inadvertently. The conference was filled with a sense of premonition even before it was convened. Ahmadinejad's presence had made participants uneasy>>>

Morality & marriage

The 1979 Islamic revolution was not a wholesale return to the past; rather, the new state reinvented and expanded certain retrogressive cultural practices and presented them as what Foucault has called a “regime of truth” through modern technologies of power. As part of its commitment to modernity, the Islamist state continued the literacy and health campaigns of the Pahlavi era. It also created, alongside the army and the police force, a parallel series of paramilitary forces. As soon as the regime attained some degree of authority, it established a new juridical discourse on sexuality, whose underlying theme was granting more power over women’s sexuality and reproductive functions to the state and to men, while also reversing modern trends in love and marriage.>>>

مترجم ساعتی

دو هفته پیش ترجمه همزمان دادگاه متهم فارسی زبانی را بهم داده بودند که با خودش نزدیک یک کیلو تریاک از مشهد آورده بود و مدام اصرار داشت که دکترش برایش تجویز کرده و معنی این سوال را که حالا چرا دکتر دو و نیم پوند تریاک آنهم برای مدت کوتاه یک ماه سفر توریستی به آمریکا را تجویز کرده را هم اصلا نمی فهمید. آخرش هم کلی به من فحش و بد و بیراه ناموسی به من داد که تو هموطنت را فروختی و خائنی و پدر مادر نداری. هرچی هم با احترام سعی می کردم برایش توضیح دهم که بابا وظیفه من فقط مترجمی است و کاری به جز ترجمه حرفهای شما و ترجمه حرفهای قاضی برای شما ندارم، رگ گردنش کلفت تر می شد و سرآخر هم با کلی احوالپرسی از اقوام اناث نسبی حقیر به بازداشت برگشت>>>

Repentance

Oh, Lord, forgive Thou me,

Not as Thou forgavest Thy children, Eve and Adam.

They tremble still

Behind the trees of Eden,

In awe of Thy mighty strides.

And they clutch the stolen green fruit

In their small hands >>>

The Wise Woman's Stone

A wise woman with a heart of gold
Travelling in the mountains ice-cold
Found a priceless gem in a river
And concealed it in her satchel fold.

Next day she met another walker
Who was a worn and hungry hawker
The woman opened her bag to share
Her food with the youth, a smooth-talker. >>>