The Lost Couplets of Pir Iqbal the Impaled

THE LOST COUPLETS

OF

PIR IQBAL THE IMPALED

translated by

Adrian Xavier

gnOme
The Lost Couplets of Pir Iqbal the Impaled
© the author and gnOme books

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Frontispiece: Iusti Lipsi de Cruce : ad sacram

profanamque historiam utiles, 1594. Public
domain.

ISBN-13: 978-0692596081
ISBN-10: 0692596089
O heart! Of the endless kindness of the Friend—
hope, sever not:
When thou boastest of love, quickly and instantly
play (stake) thy head.
– Hafiz
 PREFACE

There is little record of the life of the Albanian

poet known as Pir Iqbal the Impaled. The survival
of his verses is due to Hilmi Abdyl Maliqi (1856-
1928) of Rahovec, who considered them worthy
of transcription into the small notebook
discovered in 1999 by Prof. Nikoll Krasniqi of the
University of Priština. There Maliqi writes of him:
“Iqbal was a solitary dervish, originally from
Sharra in Tirana, who in his later years dwelled
among the caves near the ruined Christian
hermitage and monastery at Koriša. As a young
man he joined a tekke in Gjakova, but was
expelled for unknown reasons. In middle age he
led a largely itinerant life, travelling as far
Istanbul, Cairo, and Rome, during which period
he had contact with Naim Frashëri, who
mentions him with regard in the preface to
Gjithësia [Omneity], published in Bucharest in
1895 by the Shoqëri e të shtypuri shkronja shqip
(Society for the Publication of Albanian Writing).
In 1896, he suffered a mental collapse in Skopje
and was later identified by Haxhi Ymer Lutfi
Paçarizi as ‘mast-Allah’ [God-intoxicated]. His
couplets, though heterodox, were known by
mouth in the region, mostly among the Melami
Sufis of Kosova and Macedonia. After the revolt
in 1910, Iqbal publicly renounced Islam at
Priština during the visit of Sultan Mehmed V in
1911. The following year, he converted to
Christianity and was impaled for apostasy in
Prizren. The people of the district, however,
regarded his apostasy as false, a perverse
expression of his spiritual intoxication (sakr).
Thus, after his death, in honor of his mystical
inspirations (waridat), he became known as Pir
Iqbal the Impaled. The dervish’s soul is lost. By
the grace of Allah, his lines are not.” Given the
directness and crude gracefulness of Iqbal’s style,
his verses present few problems for the
translator. To convey something of his rhythm in
English, I have split his couplets into stanzas of
four-lines. We hope the reader will find them utile
et dulce.

A. X., London, 2015

 1

To the thread of your name I hold,

Though it quarter me.
On the day all my limbs are lost,
That thread will I be.

Nothing at all has to happen.

Nothing will be true.
None whatsoever must be me.
No one will be you.

Obey the wounds you feel for you,

Listen to their prayers.
Number the sighs I sigh for me,
Count with God your hairs.

The stars are the light of your feet.

What am I to do?
All things entering my eyes are
Nothing if not you.
 5

Of all arts there is only one,

One I do not know.
It makes each science fall silent,
Causing void to glow.

A true color of you is gold,

Real hue past compare,
Neither the arrow of your eyes,
Nor black of your hair.

To be here is to be destroyed,
To witness the death,
To see that every thought of you
Is my final breath.

Neither poet nor animal

Am I, not a man.
Not anything anyone sees,
Nothing that I am.
 9

They revile me for loving you—

I laugh them to scorn.
They extol me for loving you—
I weep for being born.

10

The one whose gaze sets moths aflame

Will not look at me.
So blackened is my hanging corpse,
So deformed the tree.

11

Upon the mountain I saw you

Far beneath the sea.
Under the ocean I felt you
On the highest peak.

12

The Friend scared all my friends away

With pure, loving looks.
The silent speech of that sweet face
Erases all books.
 13

The absence of love in this world

Is your fault and mine—
It splits open the heart’s mountain,
An abyss of time.

14

To be the worst poet ever

Is my only dream.
But who will tell me if I fail,
Who will hear me scream?

15

Nothing will steal your name from me

Nor tarnish its glow.
Everything else about language
Is a stupid show.

16

How tired she must be of beauty,

Dawn, to linger here,
Warming this wine-stained prayer rug
And my matted hair.
 17

All that remains of life, now that

I have seen your eyes
Depends on a few syllables
In a noose of sighs.

18

To come to the end of all ends

Is this life’s one goal,
To be what we were before being,
Far beyond one soul.

19

To be plunged so far in sorrow

Is very unwise.
Yet I see no way but weeping
To follow your eyes.

20

The heart’s path is the only Hajj,

My journey this cell.
The Black Stone which dropped from heaven
Points the way to hell.
 21

Life is for who cannot bear it,

Who die with each breath,
Who fail to fall by faltering
Through this vale of death.

22

The shepherdess who nears these cliffs

Knows nil of my pain,
How my dead sighs defile the sun,
Why men love in vain.

23

In the dust of this cavern—peace,

Like the snow of time.
In the darkness of this tomb—love,
Like the sound of rhyme.

24

Forget you saw Iqbal here, pass

By him like a tomb.
That way you are sure to meet me
On the Day of Doom.
 25

To be without you is hell, to

Be with you death.
My life is both at once,
Being in and out of breath.

26

Ask not what you should do with this,

Never play that game.
Follow not the globe to where birth
And death are the same.

27

O soul, why do you linger, lost,

On this narrow bridge?
The road is straight and home not far,
Just beyond this ridge.

28

Curse the day I first saw myself,

I spit in its face!
Never since then have I seen you,
Not in time or space.
 29

What set me down this lonesome path

I will never know.
To what end do I keep walking,
Filled with secret woe?

30

Split to zero by the lightning

Of your stormy eyes,
I became a whisper of me,
The sigh no one sighs.

31

The arrowhead in my heart is

All that I can taste.
On the day of ambush
Eden went to waste.

32

Bitter verse is my chosen food,

Its sweet thorns I eat,
Like a goat among limestone cliffs,
To be killed for meat.
 33

Would that I could not think of you,

Then life might survive.
But that is far less possible
Than being alive.

34

Hypocrisy is my order,
Constant sin my rule.
Lost in desire for the Friend
I will die a Fool.

35

The one for whom I left this world

Long ago left me.
Lost in the heart of the desert,
I drown in the sea.

36

All religions are heresy,

Each man a devil.
No one discerns the difference
Twixt good and evil.
 37

The blood of the martyrs is dry,

Their bones are now dust.
Righteousness gone, the world turns to
Anger, greed, and lust.

38

Burned to ashes in flames of love,

My dust weeps black blood.
The charred remains of joyless life
Are my sweetest food.

39

The path to Truth lies through despair,

Via mouths of hell,
Not in hope of pleasures, riches,
Or in living well.

40

These dead limbs resemble dried mud,

Rusty wire my hair.
But you will think I am a king,
When at thee I stare.
 41

Trust not in this universe, leave

Faith in God and self.
Abandon what abandons you
And see what is left.

42

I live for the one who kills me,

For whom I first sighed.
To be mirrored in your pupils
Is my suicide.

43

The moment you laughed at my tears,

Hopelessness was lost.
The ocean sank and the black moon
To the earth was tossed.

44

I hate everything that passes

Through my spinning head.
Iqbal is an evil phantom,
Not alive or dead.
 45

The tears which were my companions

Today forsook me.
No one knows the reason for this,
Why waves flee the sea.

46

First I beg you to behead me,

Then run off in fear.
Iqbal, promise no more to flee
When your love draws near.

47

Reality’s mystery will

Not be understood.
This tree of life, flowing with blood,
Is not made of wood.

48

Morning and night I breathe in your name,

As if it were air.
I taste your form, weep on your feet
As if you are there.
 49

This endless journey will end when

It never began,
On the birthday of dying to
Ever being man.

50

In the silence of the morning

My death came to me.
He stood close by just as you did,
Standing below the tree.

51

When the wind of thought blows through the

Branches of this dream,
In the silence of your name I hear both a
Whisper and a scream.

52

Naught to know of this world except

That I kill my love.
With each thought of myself I die
To what is above.
 53

Our desire is living proof that

We are marked to die.
Still, it would be lovely for once
To lay eye to eye.

54

There is no escaping God’s will,

No way past this fate.
Time’s abyss is never early
And is never late.

55

The Friend’s heart-stabbing eyes murder

And restore to life.
They heal all wounds by opening
Each one with a knife.

56

Absence of you is killing me,

Driving reason mad.
Love is alike unable to
Be happy or sad.
 57

I suffer all day in silence,

Unable to speak.
None sees me, fathoms how I am
No less strong than weak.

58

If the bells in my heart were heard,

All would fall silent.
The sound would shatter all peace and
Destroy the violent.

59

My words are blood wept through the head

Of a fountain pen.
My truth is tears bled through a hole
Without where or when.

60

The whisper of love in my veins

Has consumed my heart.
The echo of me that remains
Is less than a part.
 61

The same Friend who watches me kill

Myself with each breath
Refuses to see that my tongue
Is a prayer for death.

62

Burning in flames of remembrance,

I scream without sound.
All who see me may point and say,
Look where Iqbal drowned.

63

Body, spirit, and mind are dead.

My life is a corpse.
This I know thanks to Love, the one
Who all space-time warps.

64

Every mulla is a liar,

Each dervish a thief.
May Allah cut off their heads and
Bring their hearts to grief.
 65

To be this lost in love’s fever,

So far from the shore,
Is so naturally unnatural,
Like love of a whore.

66

The lover’s task is to suffer

And never complain,
To serve with no hesitation
And without refrain.

67

To revel with friends of the Friend

Is not Iqbal’s fate.
I dwell with ghosts of infidel
Monks who mutely wait.

68

Whatever I think, feel, or do,

Whatever I say,
There is no way to enjoy peace
Or keep war at bay.
 69

Not to me are these words verses,

Not for you this pain.
Each time your hands pluck the flowers
My eyes plant the rain.

70

For you, I sell seventy-two

Houris. For you, I
Renounce all that you will give me
To become a sigh.

71

In the still horror of the night,

When life itself slept,
My soul screamed for your body and
In my bed you crept.

72

The one who feels my thoughts and sees

Beyond these concepts
Is blessed with forever being
Free of all precepts.
 73

Today is intolerable
Because a habit.
Cease to repeat yourself and leap
Forth like a rabbit.

74

God is not God if he does not

Make you now appear—
So I forswear myself with a
Sigh that splits all spheres.

75

Poetry is not love and love

Is not poetry.
Yet their fruit is one: the absence
Of both you and me.

76

I bask in your memory and burn

In thought of your name.
What will I find in this fire,
See inside this flame?
 77

Open your eyes, see where you are.

This light is not bright.
The stars are dim, the heavens are
Small, and day is night.

78

Do not complain of the silence

Of the Beloved.
It is food, drink, shelter, and the
Leash around your head.

79

Venture no further in this world,

Have nothing to do.
Sit still and feel the sorrow
Of still being you.

80

This spine is the tree of life, this

Tongue its bitter fruit,
Sweetened on a stake that hollows
Me into a flute.
 81

Neither use nor enjoy your life,

Cease to go along.
Never have you been weak, not once
Is anyone strong.

82

Nausea of longing, heartache

Of thought, wound of will—
The only cure for this sorrow
Is more sorrow still.

83

Tis wrong to love this way, tis ill

To live in such hell.
Yet this is the only proof that
All is ever well.

84

Between abyss and mountain is

Iqbal’s empty tomb.
This birth robbed myself from it to
Wander in the gloom.
 85

My body is the smoke of a

Soul burning in hell.
Your soul is the fire of the
Pit wherein I fell.

86

Abandon with every breath what

Is not true desire.
Strip naked each moment and walk
Straight into the fire.

87

Your words are wine to me, your laugh

A sweet, heady spice.
Why does the thought of seeing you
Turn my mind to ice?

88

The path of the dervish is strewn

With poisonous thorns.
No way but to walk lightly for
One who himself scorns.
 89

I fly the seas of dreams for you,

I swim all the skies.
And nowhere do you appear, not
Even in your eyes.

90

Feed my heart to the sparrows and

My brain to the rats.
And if you can find my throat lump,
Give it to the cats.

91

I am love-wounded past repair,

Yet still babble on.
Tis no longer I who speak, but
My severed head’s tongue.

92

Abandon yourself along with

All other meanings.
Walk through veil itself inside
All other seemings.
 93

The one who is here with you now,

Whispering in your heart,
Never existed nor will, not
In nature or art.

94

On the day Iqbal proves himself

To be none but God,
The one true truth will paint the sky
With Hallaj’s blood.

95

All that I desire and long for,

All for which I die,
Less than an atom of it is
Mirrored in my eye.

96

With one sip from the cup of void

I defy all years.
All plans of God, nature, and man
I drown in one tear.
 97

Infinitely further am I,
Too far from the goal.
Iqbal will not make it, so have
Pity on his soul.

98

It is not my will that loves, but

Another in me.
The ship itself is tossing this
Body into the sea.

99

Cast once more your shadow upon

My smoldering heart.
It will leap again in flame and
Tear itself apart.

100

The drop of wine I have tasted,

This tear of desire,
Makes not drowning impossible,
Such is its fire.
 101

Iqbal is a total mess—broken heart,

shattered mind, and head of lice—
Because he now builds of himself a nest
For the bird of paradise.
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