Poetry

Seven Poems from Iran

by Alireza Roshan

translated by Erfan Mojib & Gary Gach

A black and white photograph of a bare tree limb against a grey sky — Photo: Mila Tovar / Unsplash

worldlittoday · Alireza Roshan - Seven Poems from Iran

Seeing you off, I waved

Loneliness
took it as a greeting

*

Amazing
all the breezes
waving in your hair
yet only doodling
without settling there

*

What shall the wind do
when it’s fallen in love
with a candle flame?

*

It’s like the love of a day laborer
for the best carpet in the rug store

Until someone takes you home
I’ll gaze at you every morning

*

You kiss the lip of a cup
before me
thirsty for your lips
but inferior to coffee

*

She closed the window on me
and instead of her face
on the glass I meet
the moon

*

Poetry
is the moment of your presence
written
when you leave

Translations from the Persian

Alireza Roshan (b. 1977, Tehran) is the author of Becoming You, The Book of Absence, Cage Poetry, The Dot & 19 Other Stories, Fade, Kasreh, Leyli’s Shadow, A Little Book of Love, Moonstone, Soveyda, Underground Stories, and Us. He now lives in Turkey and tweets @AlirezaRoashan (sic).

Erfan Mojib (b. 1984, Yazd, Iran, @JoseArcadioXVI) is the author of short stories and works for children and has translated various works from/to English.