Two Poems by Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou

translated by Siavash Saadlou

Chess

The rain, light-footed, is permeating
through the disproportionate 
chess board like a flood.
Under the day’s forbidding fire,
scores of rocks and pawns,
statues of kings, with soggy beards, 
are fleeing towards the new moon, 
towards the ultimate precipice
  of horizons.

The Deceased Garden

In the garden of frosty blooms
moves a childlike crib.
Under the grieving trees 
sways an infinite loneliness.
Without frolicking children,
a hundred swings move 
with the memory of a song.
In the wind lies a narrative 
of the befallen: this wilted 
missile-ridden spring...

Where is the future? 
However far we tread, 
it is but a wobbling bridge 
on the brink of days

This garden and its frosty blooms
mirror an unfruitful summer.
Unless the departed child returns, 
this swing will keep on dancing 
only for the sake of its own heart.

On the school benches 
the oasis of death reminds 
us of an immortal absence. 

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Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou, an Iranian poet, author and literary critic, was born in November 1940. Nicknamed the Poet of Tehran, Sepanlou published more than 60 volumes of poetry and essays. He was also a founding member of the Writers' Association of Iran. Among other accolades, Sepanlou was the recipient of Légion d'honneur and Le prix Max-Jacob for his scholarly and literary achievements. He died in May 2015, aged 74

Siavash Saadlou's poems have appeared in Ignatian Literary Magazine, Porter House Review, and Scoundrel Time, among other journals. They have also been anthologized in Odes to Our Undoing (Risk Press) and Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora (Green Linden Press). Saadlou is the winner of the 55th Cole Swensen Prize for Translation. He is currently an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia.