An Injured Tom-Cat In a Gunny Sack - Translation of a Saqi Farooqi Poem

The original in Roman Urdu: Khali Boray MaiN Zakhmi Billa - Saqi Farooqi


Jan Mohammed Khan
_______________this is no easy journey
in this empty gunny sack
_______________life suffocates
Jute strands pierce the heart
and on the foggy cornea
coins of moonlight cascade
and darkness overwhelms the body...

Today on your bare back
_______________who'd lit the fire
who'd fire the coal
who'd blossom the blood stained
flowers of strife?

My fiery claws are listless
_______________today the journey is not easy
presently this path abruptly will stop
at the dirty pond
and ensconced in the loneliness of my coffin
I'll embrace sleep
water to water, dust to ...

And you'll have to move on ...
_______________move on as if in trance
and you cannot fathom that invisible sack ...
_______________you can't recognize your own sack
Jan Mohammed Khan
_______________this is no easy journey.


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Links:

Saqi Farooqi : A Poet's Progress by Faruq Hassan

An Injured Tomcat in an Empty Sack translated by Frances W. Pritchett

A Wounded Cat in a Sack translated by Hifzul Kabir Qureshi
An Injured Cat In An Empty Bag translated by Rafey Habib
The Wounded Cat in an Empty Sack translated by C.M. Naim
A Wounded Cat in an Empty Sack translated by Faruq Hassan
Cat in the Sack translated by Alamgir Hashmi