Soosan Khanoom

Shirin Jan

Thank you so much for your kind comments on the youtube .... i am happy that you were actually able to see this cause it seemed that you had problem watching my pervious upload due to the fact that you are living in Europe ...

Soosan Khanoom, yes, I have experienced but

I am not going to go into details, at least not now.  But, Let me tell you that it only happened because I am focusing so much on that poet for couple hours so the mind plays tricks on you when you are so focused on someone, you might actually think that they are there with you.

CHI MAI

Also thought to give some back ground on the music I picked for these poems ..... 

Ennio Morricone, an Italian composer " (Chi Mai meaning who ever). this was then used in the film, Maddalena (1971)" . 

"Maddalena  is a  curious Italian drama is the medium for bringing to light the soul-searching conversations of an erotomaniac woman and a troubled priest. The woman is desperate to have some sort of real relationship with someone. She decides the priest is an appropriate person. He, in turn, needs to confide his philosophical and spiritual questionings to someone and unburden himself of his own doubt about his moral fitness to fulfill his role. Each represents an adequate temptation for the other. "

Chi Mai is originally an instrumental but there has been some singing on that by  Italian, french and English  singers :

Here is the English version:

//youtu.be/omR_AnweCNE 

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=omR_AnweCNE

Come, come into my arms 

Lay down here beside me

Gently guide me

The pain and pleasure

I'm scared to you

A man by design

Perfect and divine

Lover lets cover each other with gladness

Come come and discover each other with wonder

Ah, lover let's cover each other with love

Oh sweet passion

Cover me Take me like the first time

Is a last time

Oh gently open wide

Oh my heart is on fire

Burining with desire

Lover lets cover each other with gladness

Come come and discover each other with wonder

Ah, lover let's cover each other

with love

Love, love, love

Anahid 

Sorry for the delay. I read your question again today and in answer I have to say NO.... I mean, I have never felt that a poet is standing by me in the room or somewhere outside close to me .

 I feel Rabieh presence in every love poem I read and write and that is because she was love, she was the Goddess, she was a Martyr ..... I mourn her death still may be because as we speak there are women in this world that are being killed for being in love and I have no power to stop their killers. For sure if there is a hell, it is going to be packed with those who kill some one for the crime of love. It is like killing God himself ..... Cause God is nothing but Love ...

and about Rumi ... i am just so curious with Shams !  He appeared out of no where and he vanished into no where and yet he had such a fascinating impression on Rumi. Shams made Rumi a poet and not just any poet but the best one ever this world could have produced ... I sometimes think Shams had never existed and he could have been a state that Rumi had found himself in. Every poet writes a divan with his name e.g Divan-e- Hafez but then Rumi never did that ... he dedicated the entire thing to Shams .. there is no trace of rumi in Divan-e-Shams to the point that one thinks shams has written it and there is no trace of Shams in the outside world to the point that one thinks Shams had never existed  ........ I am just in love with Rumi ...... I am simply in love with him 

Anahid, I am not sure I have answered your question but have you ever experienced what you have asked us?

Well.. Rumi had a little confession as well ...

you have set up
a colorful table
calling it life and
asked me to your feast
but punish me if
i enjoy myself

what tyranny is this?

MG ....

 “Last night, my love, my life, you lay with me,

I grasped your pretty chin, I fondled it,

And then I bit, and bit, your sweet lips till

I woke...It was my fingertip I bit.  “

WOW ….

First time ever I am reading her poems.... thanks a bunch for this gem .... I loved them all …. :)

Especially this :

“I swore I would never look at him again,

I'd be a Sufi, deaf to sin's temptations;”

She clearly was longing for a sensual love. I have no doubt now after reading these lines. These two lines completely express her feelings and she had no fear to say it.... I am not sure if I have ever seen such a revealing confession with the male sufi poets ...

 Reading all those passionate erotica poems from male poets but getting fed constantly by the religious ones and by the Sufi communities that they were all written for God ... For example, how can one write lines  as Baba Tahir did  :

“I am a rose that grows on hills of love


I am a soul that learns the drills of love.


I am a heart in agony and joy.


From fire and chills and woes and thrills of love. “

or these lines as Hafez did:

“Tousled hair, sweating, a smile on her lips—drunk!

Slashed-shirt, a song on her lips, a cup in her hand.

The flower of her eyes, an argument; her lips filled with regret:

yesternight she came to my bed—and sat!”

With out having really experiencing the sensual love first?  How can ever a person that has not been in love with another person can ever know about the fire, the chills , the woes, and the trills of love …..

I am not suggesting that they have not written anything for God but to write like that and to even feel like that you have got to feel it in flesh first….

I mentioned in one of my replies on my other blog that a love poem sees no boundary between spiritual love and profane love … When I read Hafez it’s like I am reading love poems of Emily Dickenson ….

Now one question remains, do we really need to explain any poem? Interpretation of what then?   Love is love and Hafez was in love and he knew it oh so well …. Same as Baba Tahir and the rest of the gang.....

Some poems by Jahan Khaton

My heart, sit down, welcome love's pain,

and make the best of it:

The rose is gone, the thorns remain,

so make the best of it.

My heart said, " No I can not endure

this sadness any longer..."

I said, " you've no choice, don't complain

just make the best of it"

***

I'm like the moth that flutters around a light

Risking my soul for love and love's delight:

In love with you I'm like the candle too,

Dissolving, burning, weeping, through the night.

***

Last night, my love, my life, you lay with me,

I grapsped your pretty chin, I fondled it,

And then I bit, and bit, your sweet lips till

I woke...It was my fingertip I bit.

***               

I told my hear, " I can't endure this tyranny!

He's nothing, no-one! What's this bully's love to me?"

My little heart, you're like a boundless sea it seems;

And common-sense? a splinter somewhere on that sea.

***

I swore I would never look at him again,

I'd be a Sufi, deaf to sin's temptations;

I saw my nature wouldn't stand for it-

From now on I renounce renunciations.

  ***                   

Shiraz when spring is here-what pleasure equals this?

With stream to sit by, wine to drink, and lips to kiss,

With mingled sounds of drums and lutes and harp and flutes;

Then, with a nice young lover near, Shiraz is a bliss

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: " Spells to Fascinate the Angel Gabriel" by Prof. Richard Davis. Published in

PARNASSUS, poetry in review, Vol.25, 1&2 (2001).

P.S. Since you like Lenny Cohen here's one more from him. This is his homage to Lorca. Hope you like it, cheers

Take This Waltz

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdkIW7V8Y0w&feature...

MG....

Dance Me To The End Of Love

That was a beautiful song and a wonderfull Video ... Thank you 

and I have not seen it before  ... I guess I know him more with his " "Hallelujah" song and I do not think so any one sang it as good as him ....

Many beautiful Love poems are written by men of course ......  and they are as beautiful as the ones written by women ....

Thanks for reading this blog and I am so glad that you did and that you liked it .... and do not wait for Mr. Nouri ... you can share with us your favorites ..

and what did happen to your homework?  The story of the " Koche "  :) 

...

Lovely collection of poems, thank you. I was going to post some Jahan Khaton for you, but  have a feeling Dr. Nourie is going to have a blog on her, so I just leave it to him.

Japanese poetry has a style all its own. Ahmad Shamlou and Pashayie had collaberated on translating some Haiko to farsi. It would be nice to have a blog on those translations, first I have to find that book!

Last but not least, this is not a poem by a women, but almost as beautiful, hope you like it, cheers

Lenny Cohen- Dance Me

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I

P.S. Azadeh's poem was very moving.

Anahid jan .  

WHat a great question and I have some thoughts on that ..... i will write more later ... I need to take my time and really think about it ...

in terms of Rabieh, I am just so overwhelmed with her and that is in everything I read and write ....

I also am very much into rumi and his life .....  Rumi became a poet over night .... at the age of 40 and after meeting Shams .. and even if he had written something before  that was nothing and nothing at all compare to what he wrote afterwards .....

I always question about the nature of Shams?  ..... Was he really existed or he was a state that rumi find himself in?  

talk to you later  

Dear Soosan, question for you and all who write poetry

I have to go out and I will not be able to check the comments. I managed to leave my BlackBerry somewhere and since it had problems, I am just getting a new one which means few days with no smart phone, or any mobile phone. It feels so 1995.  Any way, to make a story short, I will check the comments later on today, but since you wrote that you feel presence of Rabe'eh in the love poems that you read, I have a question of everyone, especially those who write poetry. I am wondering whether any one of you has ever felt presence of a poet. I don't mean in the poem but I mean that they felt the poet was with them in the room or outside close to them.

Azadeh jan

What a wonderful contribution to her. What a beautiful write and touching poem ...... 

We, especially as Iranian women , should really shade  more lights on her life, her love, and her dead.... She is a hero to me by all means ....

I have not researched on her much but I am determined to do so .. I believe Attar in the conference of the birds had written about her ...

Mostly what  I know is some of her poetry and the heartbreaking story of her love with its tragic ending  ....

I feel her presence in love poems that I read and the one that I write ....

Thank you for your comments here and your contributions ....

please let us know more of anything that you have found on her in your research ..... 

Azadeh jan, what a beautiful poem you wrote about Rabe'eh

Thanks for the link to your poem about Rabe'eh. It is a great poem.

Very interesting ...

and lovely poems. Thank you, Soosan.

And as you keep mentioning Rabia (Rabe'eh), here is a poem I wrote about her a couple of years ago, entitled Roses for Rabia.

//iranian.com/main/2007/roses-rabia-0

Cheers,

Azadeh

Anahid

I am glad that you liked it as well and thank you for your comments ....

by the way, whenever I get a chance, I shall write more about Rabeh  .... Mr Nouri did a great job in reminding us of her. 

I always feel her presence in every love poem that I read regardless of the poet ... her tragic death has hunted me since the very first time I read about her.   I do not know why but I still mourn her death... as I said in the other blog ..."  being killed because of being in love ..."  

Her crime was love and death was her punishment  ....  

Yolanda

These poems are simple but they are full of meanings and they are amazingly beautiful ...  I am glad you liked it 

Thank you ... 

Soosan Khanoom, poems are excellent and pictures are fantastic.

Thanks for introducing me to poetry of Komachi and Shikibu .

It is very romantic and your pictures are all  great. Thanks for sharing.

............

The video is nice and music is great!

My favorite is the last poem in the video!

Thank you for sharing! Wow! Japanese poems are indeed simpler than Persian poems! If Persian poetry is fire, and then Japanese poetry is like water! Japanese seem to be reserved people!