Oregon
Literary
Review
Vol. 3, No. 1

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Marjolijn De Jager
EXCERPTS FROM
SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR: AFGHAN WOMEN'S POETRY
Edited by Sayd Bahodine Majrouh


 

                                      *

May you perish on the field of honor, my beloved!

So that girls will sing your glory each time they haul

    water from the spring.

                                    

                                      *

May you be found cut to pieces by a trenchant sword,

But may the news of your dishonor never reach my ears!

 

                                     *

 

 

                                    17

My lover wants to keep my tongue inside his mouth,

Not for the delight of it, but only to establish his

      rights on me.

 

                                   19

Never shall I take an old man as a lover,

He wastes the night just planning things and in the

    morning calls himself robust.

 

                                   22

What else can he do but behave like a hero,

Since I am putting the pillow of my white arms

     beneath his head?

 

                                   26

Intoxicated just because I smiled at you,

You’d be raving mad if I were to offer you my mouth!

 

                                  34

God, what are you doing to me?

The others are flowers burgeoning and you are leaving

      me as a tight bud.

 

                                  69

Son, if you desert our war,

I shall curse everything and also the milk of my breasts.