Rehan Qayoom is a poet, editor and translator educated at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has featured in numerous literary publications and performed his work at international venues. He is the author of Prose 1997 - 2008 (2009), After Parveen Shakir and About Time (2011): a collection of his English poetry. He is the editor of the prose and poetry of Morney Wilson, published as Martyr Doll,Remains and The Recordings (2011).

Rehan Qayoom

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After Faiz

No it is not that the allure of the sun's stilettos
That bedazzle the eyes
Or that the wiles of the dawn-breeze-route-beguiling gait
That roast the heart when in it reflected
Can no longer emerge in the elegance of another
Nor is it that beauty and love and desire
The rituals of Courtly Romance, the tradition of Chivalry
Have no role to play at the midnight masquerades
But that we live in this perpetual city you and I
Uninvited to the carousels
Nor hearing the horn-blow portending doomsday
What sempiternal taverns do this Muse and I haunt
In which none can hear the tumult of the revelers
Let alone catch the glass-heart shatter