#qaharasi

[aftaabmagazine]

that memory, will never leave me 

you arrived, dancing beneath that rainbow, that joyful arch

and an angle offered us her greetings 

two angles of good fortune gave their blessings 

you brought me a gift from a far-off realm 

bestowing me a colorful treasure 

at that moment, your sweet eyes 

had a fine, waterlily-blue hue 

and your gaze, a smile, sweet as milk 

sprinkled onto my innocent lips 

the forest trembled from the water’s glowing splendor 

and I fluttered restlessly by the river 

your allure was a spontaneous melody

that memory, will never leave me 

— Qahar Asi

Summer 1988 These lines are an excerpt from his poem "That Memory Will Never Leave Me." Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad

Fall 2025 | پاییز ۱۴۰۴

[aftaabmagazine]

A Conversation in Exile: Qahar Asi on Noozar Elias’ Influence

Caption: “The immortal Asi and I, on the grounds of Kabul University. Mid-October 1982.”  — Noozar Elias (source kabulnath.de)

A Conversation in Exile: Qahar Asi on Noozar Elias’ Influence

This audio fragment, steeped in the languid heat of an Iranian summer in 1994, finds Qahar Asi (قهار عاصی) in reflective dialogue with a literary radio program—a voice drifting through the landscapes of memory and exile. Here, Asi delicately traces the contours of his creative kinship with Azim Herati (عظیم هراتی), known to the literary world as Noozar Elias (نوذر الیاس).

Asi remained in Iran from the spring through the late summer of 1994. Unable to extend his stay, by the Iranian officials, he was forced to depart in August; shortly after returning, he was killed in his beloved Kabul by a rocket attack. In this interview segment, Asi looks back a decade to Kabul University, where the mentorship between the two poets flourished. It was Elias, Asi confides, who first encouraged him toward poetry, becoming "my window to look through this garden." — Farhad Azad Spring 2026 | بهار ۱۴۰۵

Audio Translation:

"Azim Herati—he is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Afghan poetry. He currently lives in Canada. He was in the School of Law, and I was in the School of Agriculture [at Kabul University]. We met in my third year at the School of Agriculture. He had a masterful understanding of the intricate artistry found in contemporary Iranian poetry. He had already established himself as a respected poet in Kabul before coming to Iran, where he quickly gained recognition for his literary achievements. According to him, I was apparently a natural poet. I was writing things back then, too. He refined my mind, opening a window for me to see this garden for what it truly is. From 1983 onwards, I truly became a poet. I was an agricultural official in Logar, but I heard the call of poetry. I left agricultural engineering behind and entered the fields of literature and art."

Audio Transcription of the Farsi Text by Paween Pazhwak

Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad Audio of Qahar Asi's Interview / نوای گفت‌وگوی قهار عاصی

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نمیدانم چه بنوازم! I do not know what I should compose!

نمیدانم چه بنوازم!

I do not know what I should compose!

قهار عاصی 

Qahar Asi 

Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad 

With edits by Parween Pazhwak

نمیدانم چه بنوازم

I do not know what I should compose

نمی‌خواند به اندام فریبای غزل، سازم

It does not harmonize to a ghazal’s deceptive sculpted body

نمی‌دانم چه بنوازم

I do not know what I should compose

بلای استخوان سوز جدایی

the bone-chilling pain of separation

راه وا کرده ست بر جانم

has unlocked a path into my soul 

نه سر از پای می‌فهمم

I do not know my condition

نه راه از چاه می‌دانم

nor do I know the passage from this hollow 

به عنوان کدامین درد

from which guise of pain 

بی‌تابی خود را

my relentlessness 

در سرودی رنگ پردازم

shall I color a hymn 

نمی‌دانم چه بنوازم

I do not know what I should compose

- - -

I came across these lines from my first book of Qahar Asi poems, ''آرمان'' (Desire), which I had gathered back in the late 1990s.  

These lines hold a certain mystique in that one can assume that the poet's creative spark has momentarily gone astray for the lyrics of a song to emerge in the form of a ghazal, the form commonly used in the Kabuli ghazal compositions. 

In the 1980s, radio singers sang his words, but now, a yearning for a lost love permeates his verses. And yet, ink pours forth from his pen as he endeavors to shape a lyrical format. Alas, the "relentlessness" and "bone-chilling pain of separation" still linger.

— Farhad Azad

[aftaabmagazine]

برای توست It is for you

برای توست

It is for you

قهار عاصی

Qahar Asi

مرا اگر حرفی باشد برای توست

if I have anything to say, it is for you

هنگامی که می‌میری و روح بازوانت را

when you pass by and the sprint of your arms

به گندم‌زار می‌بخشی

you bestow to the wheat fields

برای توست هنگامی که قلبت را

it is for you when your heart

برای کِردهای خاره در فریاد می‌آری

cries out for the dry garden

مرا شعری اگر باشد برای توست

if I have a poem, it is for you

مرا نامی اگر باشد برای توست

if there is a letter, it is for you

Translated from Farsi by Farhad Azad

Imagery detail of a manuscript painting, Herat circa the 1500s.

عاصی اما استاد تغزل است. شعر او بی‌هیچ منازعه‌ای سرشت تغزلی دارد که به برکت زبان ساده و بی‌تکلف و به لطف واژگان بومی و روستایی‌اش، سرشار از عاطفه و صمیمیت است، چونان آب جاری و زلال. چندان قوی که همه ضعف‌های ساختاری و زبانی و تکنیکیِ کلیتِ شعر او را می‌پوشاند.

—کاوه جبران

۱۳ میزان ۱۳۹۵

وزنامه 8صبح

Asi is a master of lyrical poetry. His poems have a rhythmical nature without any argument, full of emotion and intimacy thanks to its straightforward and unpretentious language and use of regional and rural words. So strong that it fuses all the structural, linguistic, and technical gaps of his verse as a whole.

— Kawa Jobran October 13, 2016

8 AM Newspaper

[aftaabmagazine]

ای شام o’ twilight

[caption: Imagery from “Youth by a Flowering Tree” by Farrukh Beg,

court painter of Kabul, circa the 1600s]

By Qahar Asi

قهار عاصی

ای شام مختصر

o’ passing twilight

با خود مرا ببر

take me with you

با خود مرا بسوی افقهای دور بر

take me to distant horizons with you

اینجا دگر شب است و به نامم ستاره نیست

here it is night and there is no star in my name

ای شام مختصر

o’ passing twilight

آنجا ببر که جلگه سبزینه ها و نور

take me to the place of green meadows and light

با ناز بوسه های سحر

with the scent of dawn’s kiss

شخم می خورد

are sowed

آنجا که آفتاب

to the place where the sun

برهان آشتیست

is at peace

آنجا که عشق

to the place that love

شیرین ترین عبارت فریاد های ماست

is sweetest expression of our cries

Qahar Asi قهار عاصی was a renowned contemporary Afghan poet, born in 1956 in a small village in Panjshir درهٔ پنجشير, Afghanistan افغانستان.

His work is sociopolitical, romantic, and colloquial. A rocket attack killed him by his home in 1994 Kabul.

Farrukh Beg فرخ بیگ was born around 1547. He served in Kabul in the court of Mirza Muhammad Hakim, half-brother of Mughal Emperor Akbar. At age 40, he moved to the Mughal court in India.

The painting is in the collection of the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin, Ireland.

[aftaabmagazine]

قتال شهر من

The Slayer of my City

قتال شهر من

The Slayer of my City

قهار عاصی

By Qahar Asi

قتال شهر من

the slayer of my city

مجموعه سیاهی و سر نیزه ست

is a shadowy pack and with bayonets

خونخواره هزار دم کشتن

in a second, bloodthirsty to murder hundreds

دیوانه هزار سر مرگ است

demented to see the death of hundreds

از انفجار طرح لبانش را

from a plot to set an explosion upon their lips

لبخند بسته اند

they smile

تابوت باغ

a garden as a coffin

جغرافیای تنگ دماغ اوست

is the landscape of their narrow minds

Translated from the Farsi Dari by Farhad Azad

Imagery دیوها "div-ha" (demons) from "The Shahnama," Herat and Tabriz school of art, ca. 1524

These lines are from Qahar Asi's قهار عاصی collection of poems, From the Island of Blood: Elegies for Kabul, published in January 1993 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Asi depicted Kabul's destruction led by the US, Iranian, and Pakistani backed Islamists after the collapse of the USSR supported Afghan government. The "champions" of the USSR-Afghan war had created a new graveyard: Kabul.

In 1994, a rocket attack killed Asi near his home in Kabul.

Qahar Asi قهار عاصی was a renowned contemporary Afghan poet, born in 1956 in a small village in Panjshir درهٔ پنجشير, Afghanistan افغانستان.

His work is sociopolitical, romantic, and colloquial. A rocket attack killed him by his home in 1994 Kabul.

[aftaabmagazine]

oh moon ای ماه

ای ماه

oh moon

آواز فرهاد دریا

Vocals Farhad Darya

شعر قهار عاصی

Poem Qahar Asi

ای ماه فرشته ای مرا دیدی اگر

oh moon, if you see my angel

یا ز آن گل من سراغ بشنیدی اگر

or if you hear a sign of that flower of mine

برگو که هنوز امانت عشق تورا

tell her that I still have your sincere love

دارد به بغل بدو تابیدی اگر

in my embrace, if you beam upon her

In the 1970s popular Kabuli music scene, the poet Ada and composer Nainawaaz paired themselves, and in the 1980s, vocalist and composer Farhad Darya and poet Qahar Asi forged an artistic relationship.

[aftaabmagazine]

قصه های غم   sad stories

[caption: Artwork by Abd al-Aziz, Herat school of art 16th century]

قصه های غم sad stories

قهار عاصی

By Qahar Asi

Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad

نوشتم قصه های غم نوشتم I wrote sad stories, I wrote

بلای انفجار و بم نوشتم about an awful explosion and bomb, I wrote

برای قتل عام شهر کابل for the massacre of Kabul city

قلم برداشتم ماتم نوشتم I picked up a pen,   I wrote sadness

- - - 

These lines are from Qahar Asi's collection of poems, From the Island of Blood: Elegies for Kabul, published in January 1993 in Kabul, Afghanistan.  

Asi depicted Kabul's destruction led by the US, Iranian, and Pakistani backed Islamists after the collapse of the USSR supported Afghan government.

The "champions" of the USSR-Afghan war had created a new graveyard: Kabul.

Qahar Asi's words, written almost three decades ago, fit into today's Afghanistan.

Monstrous shadows attack.

Blameless lives butchered.

Unending grief spills.