King

King

What good is the world’s kingship?

Why multiply your cares?

It’s hard to weigh justice –

You’d make this more that less.

Don’t you have enough worries

That you seek the world’s troubles?

What would you do with such a throne

As makes you weep night and day?

In a large herd of mules,

The great mule leads the rest –

A great king of beasts

Is the greatest beast of all.

This world – a dog’s tail –

Cannot be straightened or mended;

With a black cat’s body

It blackens more with washing.

A kingdom is created

When half men starve and half die;

When one man feeds the flesh

Of another to dogs at home.

What would such life mean

That you either kill or die?

Where are your fruits and roses?

You keep a garden and kill the nightingale?

Lord, if you grant me

Kingship of the world,

I’ll hurl it out of home

Like dung on a dunghill.

These couple of living moments

I cannot spend in brawls;

Over this pot of cruelty,

Lord, place another lid;

Just give me some flowers

And a lovely sweetheart;

A little garden

On the riverside;

So I may sit on the bank

In the cool shade of a weeping willow

And write with cheer

Some pleasing ghazals –

Now plead to the beloved,

Now curse and taunt the Mullah;

Praise the cup and the cupbearer

To a farmer full of turnips;

And to you, my lord,

Complain like a child.

Now warm and lively hope,

Now burnt out sighs,

Now rhythm and music,

Now chalice and love –

Immersed in a colorful world,

Oblivious of the world.

Give rule to those

Who can endure its force;

With the hand of a butcher

And character of a snake,

Who can sacrifice to themselves

The blood of their brothers;

Who can both eat and digest

The flesh of the poor.

The head carrying the crown

Is the one that kills like a plague;

That roars and tears like a panther

And frightens like a ghost.

The throne cannot be taken

Without sword and hangman;

The more kings there are,

The world is worse for it.

A great king is a great curse

Who thrives on the curse of blood.

Kingship is like fire

And thrives on burning.

Lord, be gracious to us

And keep us from this calamity!

Find a great ass somewhere and

Load it with this bag of gems.

Just beg him once, Sahib,

On my behalf and say,

‘Watch, you pimp’s ass, don’t

Strike Ghani with a kick.”

Hyderabad Jail

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Translated from Pashto by Taimur Khan