Poet of the Month 051: SHAKILA AZIZZADA

SHAKILA AZIZZADA
May 2012

CAT LYING IN WAIT

 

They don't bode well,
these words.

Don't tell me the door to Paradise
opens between my lips.

In the cleft between my breasts,
God himself tripped.

I'll come

and again
your breath will breathe
inside me,
your lungs will fill
with my scent,
your tongue will
rain, rain,
rain again on my skin.

I'll give in.

And this time,
when you come with that glint
in your eye, bent
on tearing me apart, you'll be,

without a shadow of a doubt,

like the black cat that leapt
out of hiding, cut
across my path just now,
hunted down
the sparrow at your door
till she fell
stunned and captive.

 

 

 

date unspecified

Translated by

  

MIMI KHALVATI 

 

and  

 

ZUZANNA OLSZEWSKA

 

 

 

 

The following biographical statement appears on the website of The Poetry Translation Centre.  [It is re-posted here for information purposes only and, like the poem re-posted above, remains its author's exclusive copyright-protected intellectual property.]
 

 

Shakila Azizzada was born in Kabul in Afghanistan in 1964. During her middle school and university years in Kabul, she started writing stories and poems, many of which were published in magazines. Her poems are unusual in their frankness and delicacy, particularly in the way she approaches intimacy and female desire, subjects which are rarely addressed by women poets writing in Dari. 

 

After studying Law at Kabul University, Shakila read Oriental Languages and Cultures at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, where she now lives. She regularly publishes tales, short stories, plays and poems. Her first collection of poems, Herinnering aan niets  [Memories About Nothing], was published in Dutch and Dari and her second collection was published in 2012. Several of her plays have been both published and performed, including De geur van verlangen [The Scent of Desire]. She frequently performs her poems at well-established forums in The Netherlands and abroad. 

 

Shakila was one of the poets who took part in the PTC's Persian Poets' Tour in May 2012. 

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to read more poems by Afghan poet SHAKILA AZIZZADA:

 

 

https://poetrytranslation.org/poems/epitaph

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Last updated 13 April 2021