Rafiq Kathwari, the first non-Irish recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, obtained his MFA from Columbia University and an M.A. in political science from the New School. His recent poetry collection is My Mother's Scribe (YodaPress); his translations from the Urdu of selected poems of Muhammed Iqbal (1877-1938), many individually published here at 3QD, are forthcoming soon. He divides his time between New York, Dublin, and Kashmir where he was born a Scorpio at midnight. Email: rafiqkathwari [at] gmail.com
Website: https://www.rafiqkathwari.com
Mother Writes to Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (born Prince Louis of Battenberg), Last Viceroy of India, Cuckolded by Nehru, Assassinated by the IRA. 27 August 2019 Dear Lord Louis, Last night I dreamt we were flying on an Oriental rug above graveyards of the Kashmir valley…
Mother Writes to the Lion of Kashmir, Long Deceased 5 August 2019 Dear Sheikh Sahib, daring son of Kashmir’s soil. They tell me, you’re buried on the left bank of Naseem lake, with views of the Hazratbal shrine, which you rebuilt, your tomb guarded by India’s paramilitary troops. I tell them this represents one of…
Your laughter was a car engine sputtering. Your peers were whiz kids in the dot com world. You showed me notes you’d made in the margins of all seven volumes by Proust. You said Sentimental Education wasn’t sentimental enough. You rolled your own leaves reading Ulysses, finishing it in three nights flat, but you wished…
Last Night I Dreamt I Was in Kashmir Again “May our Chinar last a thousand years,” Grandfather said, clenching a cigar. “Chi means What, Nar: Fire: What fire!” Rustling boughs reigned above the tin roof of our home where I was born a Scorpio at midnight. It’s Fall. Each leaf burst into a flower. We…
by Rafiq Kathwari A Jewish grandfather and a Muslim man walk into a New York delicatessen….and 55 years later the Muslim man writes a trailblazing autobiography. He’s scrawny when he leaves his native home in the Vale of Kashmir, a disputed land in the Himalayan foothills between India and Pakistan. He dodges an impending war.…
Day 115 of the Kashmir Siege halmas sheen athann soor dilas shishargaanth —By Aliya Nazki Snow furrows my phiran Ashes: my hands Icicle: my heart Aliya Nazki, a Presenter at BBC Urdu, based in London, was born and raised in Kashmir. Translated from the Kashmiri by Rafiq Kathwari /@brownpundit
Driving Lolita in the World’s Most Militarized Zone A boy, I hid in grandpa’s study. An art dealer he loved books with gilded edges, Aristotle to Zola all stuck together in the humidity. I snuck Lo out to his black Chevy rifled for the dirty bits (should ’ve looked harder, I guess), drove her away…
Day 28: India’s Siege on the Vale of Kashmir by Ayaz Rasool Nazki Trapped in a tomb you yearn for a voice: a family kin a friend a stranger even an enemy would do a nightingale sings (of joy?) a crow caws caws caws Your santoor in the corner its strings concertina Dumb for notes…
Your Love’s Horizon is What I Want by Muhammad Iqbal Your love’s horizon is what I want The simplicity of what I want Let’s bestow heaven on the pious Seeing you face to face is what I want Promise me you’ll reveal yourself Tease me. Test my patience. That’s what I want I’m a small…
Two Poems by Muhammed Iqbal (1877-1938) Bright Rose You cannot loosen the heart’s knot, perhaps you have no heart no share in the turmoil of this garden where I yearn but gather no roses. Of what use is wisdom to me? Once out of the garden, you are at peace. I am anxious, scorched as…
Spring in Kashmir by Rahman Rahi And there’s a love-torn couple In the lap of a shikara on Dal And there’s a vermilion cloud In a sapphire sky flirting a peak And there’s a deodar With kohl-rimmed eyes And there’s a tulip With parched lips And there’s a wine goblet Bubbling with pearls And there’s…
Translating a Few Lines by Rehman Rahi (With a news peg in parenthesis) Melting snow a breeze, (a car explodes, flesh and bones litter the road, the bomber spliced to a metal chunk.) The breeze is a spy. Here, can’t even Wailaikum someone, and they speak of dialogue. To live, people die. O Spring be…
THE VALE OF SAINTS I drove up the Himalayan foothills to Baba’s shrine with my friend Masood in a tired white Gypsy with dodgy brakes, urged on by my 94-year-old mother at Hebrew Home The Bronx who said her father, a wealthy ring-shawl merchant patronized by the Maharajah, had married three times hoping to produce…
Merry Christmas, America When you’re not with the love of your life in America Love the woman who once was your wife in America Then America was a terror for tyrants and a triumph for liberty Now babies are caged in Texas by President forty-five of Amerika He’s undignified, is unqualified, talks nonsense, zealous Gunrunners…
Whirling Hebrew Home The Bronx Mother sobs in short bursts I lean over brush my cheek against hers on the pillow “What’s wrong?” “Look at Tarek” she wails “he’s drowning For the love of Allah save my son. Look, my bayta he’s whirling” I’m curious how she knows Tarek’s been swept away by a rip…
Capitals: Game Farouk Plays To Keep Mother’s Mind Active Moscow! Mother says when Farouk asks, Capital of Russia? Japan? Tokyo! She gazes at the sun mirrored in a pane across the courtyard. “You were born a week after Nagasaki,” she says to Farouk who arches his eyebrows leans forward in his chair gently rubs her…
SCOFFLAW There’s a lighthouse chasing us just as I forewarned when she jumped the queue veered the red Renault onto a prohibited bus lane on New Kent Road. We idle on the verge. A world tilts. Bobby, rotund in blue, knocks boldly on the pane. She lowers the window. “Well, then?” he asks, “When I…
My Dinner with Agha Ashraf Ali You light a candle then curse the darkness with your usual flourish debone a carp add pinch of salt in your carpeted kitchen discourse on the next course to scrape or not the fish head gaadkalley honorific you offer a scrap of history bestowed once by Kashmiris on the…
WITHERED ROSE by Mohammad Iqbal With what words shall I call you Desire of the nightingale’s heart? In a Country of Roses You were named Laughing Rose Morning breeze your cradle Garden a tray of perfumes My tears rain like dew And in my barren heart your ruin An emblem of mine My life a…