Lyric: Mirror No. 58
Remember…
Mirror-holder…
Remember…
A Yalda of patience
Has spread its warp and woof
On the puzzled mirror.
My coffin has slid to the margin,
In keen expectation.
Where is the hand
To open the knots
From the traces of the wind?
So I can raise my sails
Towards the darling’s land.
O mirror-holder…
Was not that corpse
Wrapped in the white shroud
Of my aspirations,
And fallen
In frozen sleep,
Called confidence?
To bury the tears on the plains
With the bitter taste
Of farewell’s dagger,
In nocturnal excursions.
Mirror-holder…
Remember…
What space of time was it?
Remember?
Is the image of poets
In the workshops of the world
This—
To exhume,
And to abort
The fetus of recollection
With the pen’s claws?
Or…
To wander
In the province
Of ideal talk?
O mirror-holder…
When the perfume
Of my agitated poems
Curled beneath your earlobes,
My soul—
This detached fragment,
This realm of pain—
Burned
In the heat
Of the flames of your breath.
And learnt…
Love,
This golden key,
Can’t turn
In the lock of death.
One must search like the river
In the vein of one’s own song.
And one must sink
In the middle of the swamp.
One must break knees
Among bloody leather tablecloths,
And count down
Under the descending axe.
Or like the waterfall
Expires
In the heart
Of its own flight.
And break the cup—
And spill the wine.
I never had a choice.
I both broke the cup
And the sediment.
Look at the palm of my hand…
And see—
Fifty-eight years
Of agitation.
Remember…
Darling…
Darling…
What you did
With my playful heart,
When in the street
And in the bazaar
Your hand
Was playing childish pranks.
What did you do
To my heart
That it grew old
In a tavern—
And froze?
O Burglar…
And forget not—
They made me dance.
Made me dance.
Barefoot
On the razor’s edge.
And a tired me…
To the season of dawn,
With the spectrum
Of the scent of rose,
I have broken my fast.
Does man mean explosion?
And life—
To be hurled
From the womb
Into a tomb?
Will reason
Be no more cured
By the spell
Of love and madness?
I am ruined.
Ruined.
Ruined.
It is long since the cock
Has cried its third cry,
And our denial
Has been proven.
I never believe
In ascension.
But believe…
Descent
Without a parachute
At Golgotha.
Flight lives
With Jesus’ life.
All my fear
Is of an eagle’s offspring,
Who has broken its egg
Just today,
For a hungry snake
Is stealing it now
From the depth
Of the nest.
What must I do,
O darling?
Should I rise
And lend
A helping hand?
Never knot the wind.
Always,
Under the monumental moment,
The bowl makes another round.
It is another person’s turn.
There is always
A chance.
A Yalda of patience
Has spread its warp and woof
On the puzzled mirror.
The smoke has risen…
From the ancient stump.
Remember…
Remember…
About Nosrat Rahmani
Nosrat Rahmani (1930–2000) was one of the distinctive voices of modern Persian poetry. Born in Tehran, he began writing poetry at an early age and became closely associated with the modern poetic tradition influenced by Nima Yushij. Alongside his work as a poet, Rahmani was active in journalism, radio, and literary publishing.
His poetry is often dark, dramatic, and deeply personal, exploring love, loneliness, memory, death, disillusionment, and the restless struggle of the individual against life. His language could be simple and direct, yet his imagery was intense and often filled with mirrors, wine, smoke, wounds, streets, and forgotten memories.
Rahmani became particularly popular among younger readers during the 1960s and 1970s. His poems gave voice to people living on the margins of society, while his later work increasingly turned inward, confronting disappointment, suffering, aging, and the possibility of hope.
“Mirror No. 58” reflects many of these qualities: memory and mortality, love and loss, despair and the faint possibility of another chance. In this adaptation, Rahmani’s poetry is brought into a contemporary English-language setting through dark cinematic downtempo, trip-hop, and atmospheric electronic music—allowing the voice of a remarkable modern Persian poet to resonate in a new musical landscape.
