Shout

My house is ablaze a fiery fire,
burning in every corner,
curtains and rugs, warp with weft.
I run about weeping,
through its raging fumes
amidst my bitter laughs
and the rush of unhappy tears
from a weary core in flames,
I shout, shout, shout!

My house is on fire, a cruel fire
It keeps on burning,
the designs I made
on the eye and face of the door and wall
those shamed shoreless nights.
Ah, it burns and burns,
the buds I arduously nurtured
in the wide mouths of pots,
those hard days of illness.
From their merry rooftops
my enemies smile in victory
watching me in burning fire
in the refuge of a latticed night
crying of injustice
I shout, shout, shout!

Shame! it carries on burning
what memories, writings, and poems I have
and what porch and view
With a hand full of blisters,
I put out a side of the flame,
and faint in its blaze,
a flame rises from another end, with fume
by the morning my being will be doom
My kind neighbours asleep in their beds
by tomorrow there will remain a fistful of embers
Ah! will they ever rise?
my kind neighbours from sleep?
the oppressive fire burns my core
I shout, shout, shout!

Translated by Iman Habibi