گلوریا جینز میں شام

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1. An Evening At Gloria Jeans – Poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir

   Today, after so many days
   while having coffee at Gloria Jeans…
   I have gulped down the evening too
   with the last sip
   My stomach is now full of
   Chocolate solitude
   and you, holding the paper mug
   in your hands,
   silent and frigid in awe, like always,
   looking at me on this sudden encounter
   wondering, how on earth the time
   that stood still before the genesis
   has found its way to Gloria Jeans?

   The evening, I had seen you
   for the very first time
   was just as murky as it is today
   The history wasn’t born yet
   On the Earth, there was geography
   defined by the birds and the animals only
   The time used to drift in shadows and you
   awestruck and apprehensive like always
   were looking at me

   You never kept yourself aware of anything
   You don’t even know that
   my world is too small these days
   like the realms of flora and pests
   in which there are columns of marching ants
   and the birds’ nests
   snakes made of flexible plastic and
   the flying and crawling insects
   and a little offspring who plays
   with the epoch of ice-age
   No wonder if he does so
   because, the children of cyber-age
   play with the eras not with toys
   and just like that the history begins
   and comes to an end
   Boat-houses and the waterways
   and the cities full of painters and the sculptures
   are established and then ransacked
   and with the dead bodies of the kings
   thousands of toadies get buried alive too
   and just like that, time after time
   centuries turn into despair

   You don’t even remember
   that I had seen you the second time
   right in the middle of hostile lands
   Stooping and crawling
   in the underground tunnels
   and in the abodes carved into the caves
   where ventilation was made possible
   through holes and the chimneys
   Your dreams camouflaged
   even in the deep slumber
   and your lips tightly sealed with a grin
   as if, if the world was split into two halves
   But now, the world has been divided
   into so many parts that, to show it to someone
   even the lines in a palm are not enough

   And right here, at this very place
   where this city is hustling and bustling
   and we are sitting here in Gloria Jeans
   I had seen you for the last time
   here, there were only a few dwellings
   there was a trail and a bend
   where I was standing
   With the worst defeats and disgraces
   streets were deserted and the rooftops desolate
   smoke was rising up from the trees and the abodes
   and only a forlorn glimpse of you
   The enemy had jammed all the communication
   between hearts and the minds
   The hills had denied the refuge to us
   and the clouds were bursting out of nowhere

   And today yet again – after so many ages
   we have met at Gloria Jeans
   and like always you don’t even know
   that we live in the same housing society
   We have no history, no geography
   just one civic center and
   a necropolis
   and in Gloria Jeans
   the time has not come to a standstill
   it is striding on a lightening pace…!!!

   (English translation by Kamran Awan)