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