I told you
"God loves our poems."
Do you now believe
That I have a strong faith in writing?
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
A Bullet in the Heart
Did it come across you?
Sorry...
But you were aiming at me from the beginning
Making me a cardboard target
Jumping in the dark to frighten you
Strangely, a little ago it was signs
Guiding you home,
And pigeons you could catch roasted
With a look,
And a protective shirt against bullets and coldness
Stop this horror festival
And your childish pleasure with fireworks
Allow me to shoot the bullet of mercy
Or let me invite you to a completely different film
Without a sensitive string, mines, ice cream in the cold
Or a wrong kill.
Sorry...
But you were aiming at me from the beginning
Making me a cardboard target
Jumping in the dark to frighten you
Strangely, a little ago it was signs
Guiding you home,
And pigeons you could catch roasted
With a look,
And a protective shirt against bullets and coldness
Stop this horror festival
And your childish pleasure with fireworks
Allow me to shoot the bullet of mercy
Or let me invite you to a completely different film
Without a sensitive string, mines, ice cream in the cold
Or a wrong kill.
A Failure Cowboy Returns
An empty swing is staggering,
A toy thrown on the ground,
A photo album is flapped by the wind,
Winter is standing at the door,
Dust marks of two feet on the stairs,
And a tear on the window glass.
- I've come …no answer,
No letters on the dresser,
No blood on the knives,
Nor a bullet in the mirror,
The curtains are not burnt,
And the horse is in the stable
Making a plan for escaping
There's a smell of scorching … no … it's my heart
I want somebody to reply, to take me in his arms, to dust away the ice from my chest, to iron me with a cup of tea and to make me sit before the fireplace weeping and telling, leaving my revolver asleep; tiered and cold.
There's nobody!
I looked out of the window
I saw another cowboy coming,
Asking for the same address!
A toy thrown on the ground,
A photo album is flapped by the wind,
Winter is standing at the door,
Dust marks of two feet on the stairs,
And a tear on the window glass.
- I've come …no answer,
No letters on the dresser,
No blood on the knives,
Nor a bullet in the mirror,
The curtains are not burnt,
And the horse is in the stable
Making a plan for escaping
There's a smell of scorching … no … it's my heart
I want somebody to reply, to take me in his arms, to dust away the ice from my chest, to iron me with a cup of tea and to make me sit before the fireplace weeping and telling, leaving my revolver asleep; tiered and cold.
There's nobody!
I looked out of the window
I saw another cowboy coming,
Asking for the same address!
A letter
For Amal Donqoul
Do you remember the first poem I wrote on the dictation notebook?
The first time I went to the palace and heard about you? I thought you were a Sudanese she-poet!! and when I saw your writings with a slang she-poet I found your face carved and untidy; like a just fallen house – while still, on a pink wall , a photo of new bride and groom – your eyes were throwing light dawn the street ; like a fire in a pile of papers – your eyes were going home. Briefly, you looked much like a wall whitener or Upper-Egyptian baker.
Do you remember the first cigarette I smoked with you in the University City? The ash fell on "Don’t Reconcile" and I closed the book on it like the flower of lovers!
I was a junior intellectual then; still chewing prosody- now, I make fun of those who write in the tradition shape and those who are sunk in feet. I'm saying it badly:-" it's me who abandoned "ElKHalily" and wrote in prose! "I escaped from the maze and the coma of metaphors. However, they listen to me and clap their hands!!!
Sometimes, I pass the Blue Tram and the Great Alexander st.,
and I remember you
I see you turning round the wall of the Greek Graves.
Then I feel shy to call you: Amal... Where are you staying tonight?
I looked for you in the hospital where I was confined, in all the rooms with number "8", but I didn't find you! I left you a message with girls. When my friends came and mentioned you, I scolded them. But I wished to take a cigarette.
Is death so far away like that?
Then, how is your voice climbing the walls?
I think you have taught them to stay late or they have appointed you as a guard at the gate to infiltrate poems and cigarettes … Do you remember the old guard who was waiting for a thief that never came? He was waiting for many things, like you and me. He hoped to smell the sun rays in his pillow and to sweep the coldness spotted on pavements- kids scattered it from the newspapers seller's hands.
Now, I read for people living far away, I have published a poem in " Ebdaa " magazine, I have written a poems book in classic Arabic and saved it in my drawer and I hear the news at the café, I become angry, light a cigarette and order " anise"!
Is your voice till ground? Your hands a pot of concrete and ten blocks of red bricks? Are you still coughing before you get the morning cold? Are you still packing your chest with a fire before breakfast? Are you still getting your shoes aside; the shoes which were blackened by rambling and walking behind things?
I'm not like you, guy. I don't need to call my last street after your name. For I have just gone out of quarrelling with the mirror and stairs sprayed with chicken feathers. Sure you will ask wickedly:-" did the chickens fly naked to the roof?!" it's your habit,
Rough like a joy, and warmer than disappointment.
Do you remember the first poem I wrote on the dictation notebook?
The first time I went to the palace and heard about you? I thought you were a Sudanese she-poet!! and when I saw your writings with a slang she-poet I found your face carved and untidy; like a just fallen house – while still, on a pink wall , a photo of new bride and groom – your eyes were throwing light dawn the street ; like a fire in a pile of papers – your eyes were going home. Briefly, you looked much like a wall whitener or Upper-Egyptian baker.
Do you remember the first cigarette I smoked with you in the University City? The ash fell on "Don’t Reconcile" and I closed the book on it like the flower of lovers!
I was a junior intellectual then; still chewing prosody- now, I make fun of those who write in the tradition shape and those who are sunk in feet. I'm saying it badly:-" it's me who abandoned "ElKHalily" and wrote in prose! "I escaped from the maze and the coma of metaphors. However, they listen to me and clap their hands!!!
Sometimes, I pass the Blue Tram and the Great Alexander st.,
and I remember you
I see you turning round the wall of the Greek Graves.
Then I feel shy to call you: Amal... Where are you staying tonight?
I looked for you in the hospital where I was confined, in all the rooms with number "8", but I didn't find you! I left you a message with girls. When my friends came and mentioned you, I scolded them. But I wished to take a cigarette.
Is death so far away like that?
Then, how is your voice climbing the walls?
I think you have taught them to stay late or they have appointed you as a guard at the gate to infiltrate poems and cigarettes … Do you remember the old guard who was waiting for a thief that never came? He was waiting for many things, like you and me. He hoped to smell the sun rays in his pillow and to sweep the coldness spotted on pavements- kids scattered it from the newspapers seller's hands.
Now, I read for people living far away, I have published a poem in " Ebdaa " magazine, I have written a poems book in classic Arabic and saved it in my drawer and I hear the news at the café, I become angry, light a cigarette and order " anise"!
Is your voice till ground? Your hands a pot of concrete and ten blocks of red bricks? Are you still coughing before you get the morning cold? Are you still packing your chest with a fire before breakfast? Are you still getting your shoes aside; the shoes which were blackened by rambling and walking behind things?
I'm not like you, guy. I don't need to call my last street after your name. For I have just gone out of quarrelling with the mirror and stairs sprayed with chicken feathers. Sure you will ask wickedly:-" did the chickens fly naked to the roof?!" it's your habit,
Rough like a joy, and warmer than disappointment.
An Aluminum Cross
Cold metal
And hot blood
Isn't it unfair?
Don't you think if it were a window
It would be better for a young lad
To start his little theory of the universe,
Or a shelter for two lovers
Where they can hide and snap up a kiss in the coldness,
Or a rolling door to entrap music, smell of brandy and warm talks
Before we shake hands and get awaken by the last order,
Or a modernized chicken cage
For birds that flew away from the poems
And got aroused by the girls of our thoughts
Honestly,Isn't it unfair?
And hot blood
Isn't it unfair?
Don't you think if it were a window
It would be better for a young lad
To start his little theory of the universe,
Or a shelter for two lovers
Where they can hide and snap up a kiss in the coldness,
Or a rolling door to entrap music, smell of brandy and warm talks
Before we shake hands and get awaken by the last order,
Or a modernized chicken cage
For birds that flew away from the poems
And got aroused by the girls of our thoughts
Honestly,Isn't it unfair?
IF UNCLE YUSSEF DIDN’T COME
The sea sits beside Ahm Yussef
who only kisses Belmont[1] girls.
When I told him I'm afraid of death, he told me “you're an idiot.”
And because I leave my father home, busy with his loneliness, I've secretly made Ahm Yussef my father and haven't told him.
A priest, and the earth his monastery,
sitting in the Crystal Coffee Shop, chatting with the skies,
his prayers like a stone thrown at a pane of glass.
However, when you see someone angry at sailboats, heading off to deep water…
you will recognize Ahm Yussef.
I came today and didn't find him.
I asked Ahm Khamis , the waiter. He told me he hadn't come yet.
It's always like that: Even when he's sitting right there, I feel he hasn't come yet.
I used to sit at his feet and he would talk about the girls I love: young, their bodies trees of unripe fruits, their bones like pigeon bones, their smell, the taste of the sea in January. “ ‘Il tempo di mele’ ” he said to me in Italian, the age of apples.
I used to see him going to the sea to bathe at midnight, swimming in girls' nectar, the girls who swam all day, concealing their transparent bathing suits in the shy sea.
He comes out drunk, filling his bottles for the road, and when the bottles are empty, he’ll wake up frightened, gasping: “Volio una donna,” I want a woman.
If Ahm Yussef didn't come, many things wouldn't change.
We would just prepare a big funeral, sit playing chess along the corniche.
Everyone would talk about his girlfriend, his last haircut,
and once this speech poked the white space inside us we call sorrow, we’d remember we'd forgotten Ahm Yussef…. all alone.
The sky will be one solitary bed for him to stretch his body as he likes,
and a dark cloud will make the warmest blanket when his belly's bare.
In heaven he'll grow bored with all the naked girls and unforbidden wine, so he'll try to turn heaven into a perfect copy of the Crystal. And he'll treat the angels to lentils!
I picture him now reeling in the stars with a fishing pole, a bottle of beer beside him, laughing so hard at me when he sees me pass, smelling of girls.
[1]Belmont is a brand of Egyptian cigarette.
who only kisses Belmont[1] girls.
When I told him I'm afraid of death, he told me “you're an idiot.”
And because I leave my father home, busy with his loneliness, I've secretly made Ahm Yussef my father and haven't told him.
A priest, and the earth his monastery,
sitting in the Crystal Coffee Shop, chatting with the skies,
his prayers like a stone thrown at a pane of glass.
However, when you see someone angry at sailboats, heading off to deep water…
you will recognize Ahm Yussef.
I came today and didn't find him.
I asked Ahm Khamis , the waiter. He told me he hadn't come yet.
It's always like that: Even when he's sitting right there, I feel he hasn't come yet.
I used to sit at his feet and he would talk about the girls I love: young, their bodies trees of unripe fruits, their bones like pigeon bones, their smell, the taste of the sea in January. “ ‘Il tempo di mele’ ” he said to me in Italian, the age of apples.
I used to see him going to the sea to bathe at midnight, swimming in girls' nectar, the girls who swam all day, concealing their transparent bathing suits in the shy sea.
He comes out drunk, filling his bottles for the road, and when the bottles are empty, he’ll wake up frightened, gasping: “Volio una donna,” I want a woman.
If Ahm Yussef didn't come, many things wouldn't change.
We would just prepare a big funeral, sit playing chess along the corniche.
Everyone would talk about his girlfriend, his last haircut,
and once this speech poked the white space inside us we call sorrow, we’d remember we'd forgotten Ahm Yussef…. all alone.
The sky will be one solitary bed for him to stretch his body as he likes,
and a dark cloud will make the warmest blanket when his belly's bare.
In heaven he'll grow bored with all the naked girls and unforbidden wine, so he'll try to turn heaven into a perfect copy of the Crystal. And he'll treat the angels to lentils!
I picture him now reeling in the stars with a fishing pole, a bottle of beer beside him, laughing so hard at me when he sees me pass, smelling of girls.
[1]Belmont is a brand of Egyptian cigarette.
Microbus
Don't get angry with me
If I made fun of you
While you were crying in fear
Or if I mocked you
As you were laughing in forgetfulness
All I wanted was to take a little care of me
Because you would get off first
Leaving me alone for a long time
Collecting fare, opening and closing the door,
Reassuring the passengers who got off,
Patting the empty seats,
Whispering to windows that winked and shivered
And giving advice to the driver
Who is thinking how to warn you
Before the coming police patrol.
If I made fun of you
While you were crying in fear
Or if I mocked you
As you were laughing in forgetfulness
All I wanted was to take a little care of me
Because you would get off first
Leaving me alone for a long time
Collecting fare, opening and closing the door,
Reassuring the passengers who got off,
Patting the empty seats,
Whispering to windows that winked and shivered
And giving advice to the driver
Who is thinking how to warn you
Before the coming police patrol.
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