Three Poems by Leila Kordbache


  • Born in 1981, Tehran, Leila Kordbache is a published poet and literary researcher. She has over ten published volumes of poetry and monographs on Persian literature. The following two poems are selected by the translator from her poetry collection Crow-Death (Nasl-e Panjom, 2012).
  • Image: Detail of Artwork by Leyly Matine Daftary [1937-2007] (see full image here)

Goodbye Kisses

Goodbye kisses are bitter
bitter
Mr. Ticket Inspector!
And what’s even more bitter
Is that we are both poets

The trains whistle
And poets who live near stations
Write sadder poems.


I’m not an Intellectual Woman

I’m jealous

Of your fingers

When they tidy up your hair

I’m jealous

Of your eyes

When they see you in the mirror

And I’m jealous

Of the woman whose colored lenses

Change the color of your shirt

What shall I do?

I’m not an intellectual woman

I’m a cave-dweller

Whose heart still beats in her head

— And what if the wind that slams the windows of my house

Has blown through someone else’s hair?

And what if the rain that brings your memory to my mind

Brings someone else’s memory to yours? —

I’m jealous

And I’m afraid of you

                           Of myself

                                     Of her

I’m afraid and I keep dialing your number

And the voice of an unfamiliar woman

Who maybe your perfume drips from the flowers of her shirt

Who maybe your scent drips from her fingers

Who maybe the letters of your name drip from her lips

Will drive you farther away out of my hands

You are far away

And I

        plunge

                   into my cave of loneliness

Next to the delusion of the bat

That these days

has turned my world

Upside down.


Because of People

It’s because of the people

That I say

Bring your ear a little closer to my lips

The world

Is becoming empty of love poems

And people don’t understand

How one can love

Someone who is so faraway

so much

Without any words.


About Hossein Nazari 2 Articles
Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, and also a poet, translator, and researcher based in Tehran, Iran.

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