14th of June 1979 Ahmad Zahir

Dead on the Day of his Birth

Afghan Voices
2 min readNov 11, 2019

A poem by Hajar Hussaini

Ahmad Zahir, Afghan musician, songwriter, and composer. 6/14/46–6/14/79

Laili Laili & I loom out of the
summer-quarter
awaiting a new child to become the savior
our king
driving away
the million grasshoppers
their territories pristine
evergreen
abundant market places & nuclear
armed
states
no sculpture is carved
under his name — except
a gravestone
which then became a harmonic clime
for fledgling lovebirds
throughout chapters
monarchies
revolutions
it was blown to pieces
colored bangles
nomad eyes: women
chattering sun faded Panjabi
crowded
bazaar
alley everyone
dancing in maxi
melodies parties
cinematic smiles
everywhere
karachis bedroom walls & graffiti’s
a prodigy
traveling through
time intervals & periodic tables
even geometries
when he sang & sang & sang
till everyone was absolut drunk
– embodying the eccentric
& all those things
changed in forty years forty years
forty years forty years
forty years
of change
now empty chalices & no winery bar daman e Kabul
purple & green grapes
prisoned in wood fibers
exporting

an ending / life will eventually
end / there’s no need for submission / if circumstances of our living
is based off submission / there’s no need to live
under
submission’

About the Author: Hajar Hussaini is an Afghan poet living in the U.S. where she pursues an MFA in Poetry at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Afghan Voices

Writing by Afghan writers. Editor/Publisher: Nancy Antle; Editor: Pamela Hart