Sweetened Poison

This was the original urdu stanza:

"Zehr meetha ho toh peene mein mazaa aata hai.

Baat sach kahiye magar yuun ki haqiqat na lage."

~Fuzail Jafri

Beautiful literal translation by Jenny Bhatt:

If poison is sweet, then it's a pleasure to drink it.

Say true things but in a way that they don't seem real."

My transliteration:

A sweetened poison never did hurt anyone

Dire truths just need a poker-faced tongue

Poetry works in amazing ways and has a soul-searching and soul-soothing connection that takes us to different routes depending upon our interactions that are defined by the way we contextualise it and the way we use and structure language. Sometimes it a trigger or a means to a new ideation as it is mostly in my case. So it works in many different ways for each person.

Shujaat Mirza

© Shujaat Mirza

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