The Label Of Ownership Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

You are at last a man,
You have come
To paste the label of your name,
You think my thoughts should sojourn
Putting on your costume,
You wish that my emotions should sleep
And wake in your name,
And more than that whatever I should speak
Should gleam with your approval,
The words should be mine
But in them your style should glimmer,
To live for you
In the walls is not as much important for you
As you wish to hang
The plaque of your name outside the house,
And ascertain
The prestige of you ownership;
Perhaps you are not aware
That outside the palaces of dreams,
There stand neither doors nor sentinels,
All houses which are labeled
With oppression become deserted soon.

Written by Shazia Akbar
Translated by Muhammad Shanazar