Forugh Farrokhzad Quotes

I believe in being a poet in all moments of life. Being a poet means being human. I know some poets whose daily behavior has nothing to do with their poetry. In other words, they are only poets when they write poetry. Then it is finished and they turn into greedy, indulgent, oppressive, shortsighted, miserable, and envious people. Well, I cannot believe their poems ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

I know a sad little mermaid
Dwelling in the ocean
Softly, gently blowing
Her heart into a wooden flute
A sad little mermaid
Who dies with a kiss at dawn. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

I speak out of the deep of night
out of the deep of darkness
and out of the deep of night I speak.

if you come to my house, friend
bring me a lamp and a window I can look through
at the crowd in the happy alley. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

I am cold,
I am cold, and it would appear
that I will never be warm again...
I am cold and I know
that nothing will be left
of all the red dreams of one wild poppy
but a few drops of blood. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

The Wind Will Carry Us

In my night, so brief, alas
The wind is about to meet the leaves.
My night so brief is filled with devastating anguish
Hark! Do you hear the whisper of the shadows?
This happiness feels foreign to me.
I am accustomed to despair.
Hark! Do you hear the whisper of the shadows?
There, in the night, something is happening
The moon is red and anxious.
And, clinging to this roof
That could collapse at any moment,
The clouds, like a crowd of mourning women,
Await the birth of the rain.
One second, and then nothing.
Behind this window,
The night trembles
And the earth stops spinning.
Behind this window, a stranger
Worries about me and you.
You in your greenery,
Lay your hands – those burning memories –
On my loving hands.
And entrust your lips, replete with life's warmth,
To the touch of my loving lips
The wind will carry us!
The wind will carry us! ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

When my trust was suspended from the fragile thread of justice
and in the whole city
they were chopping up my heart's lanterns
when they would blindfold me
with the dark handkerchief of Law
and from my anxious temples of desire
fountains of blood would squirt out
when my life had become nothing
nothing
but the tic-tac of a clock,
I discovered
I must
must
must love,
insanely. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

Behold!
My whole sky
fills with falling stars.

You came from far, far away,
from lands of light and perfume
sitting me down, now in a boat
of ivory, cloud and crystal hewn ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

Waiting in Red
It is me,
a lonely woman
at the doors of a cold season,
and discovery of the soiled soul of this Earth,
the sad despair of this Sky,
and the inability of my frozen hands. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

Life is perhaps that enclosed moment
when my gaze destroys itself in the pupil of your eyes
and it is in the feeling
which I will put into the Moon's impression
and the Night's perception. ~ Forough Farrokhzad

In a room as big as loneliness
my heart which is as big as love
looks at the simple pretexts of its happiness
at the beautiful decay of flowers in the vase
at the saplings you planted in our garden
and the song of canaries
which sing to the size of a window.

Ah…this is my lot
this is my lot
my lot is a sky that is taken away
at the drop of a curtain
my lot is going down a flight of disused stairs
to regain something amid putrefaction and nostalgia
my lot is a sad promenade in the garden of memories
and dying in the grief of a voice which tells me I love your hands. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

My whole being is a dark chant
that will carry you perpetuating you
to the dawn of eternal growths and blossomings
in this chant I sighed you, oh
in this chant,
I grafted you to the tree, to the water, to the fire. ~ Forugh Farrokhzad

I think about it and yet I know
I'll never be able to leave this cage
Even if the warden should let me go
I've lost the strength to fly away. ~ Forook Farrokhzad