Translated from the Arabic by John Mikhail Asfour Abdullah al-Udhari
To the Reader
Black tulips in my heart,
flames on my lips:
from which forest did you come to me,
all you crosses of anger?
I have recognized my griefs
and embraced wandering and hunger.
Anger lives in my hands,
anger lives in my mouth
and in the blood of my arteries swims anger.
O reader,
don’t expect whispers from me,
and borrowed branches
from the trunks of the straight trees.
I will, then,
take pride in this wound of the city,
the canvas of lightning in our sad nights.
Though the street frowns in my face
it protects me from shadows and malign glances,
and so I sing for joy
behind fearful eyelids.
When the storm struck in my country
it promised me wine, and rainbows.
Translated by John Mikhail Asfour
Identity Card
Write down:
I am Arab
my I.D. number, 50,000
my children, eight
and the ninth due next summer
—Does that anger you?
Write down:
Arab.
I work with my struggling friends in a quarry
and my children are eight.
I chip a loaf of bread for them,
clothes and notebooks
from the rocks.
I will not beg for a handout at your door
nor humble myself
on your threshold
—Does that anger you?
Write down:
Arab,
a name with no friendly diminutive.
A patient man, in a country
brimming with anger.
My roots have gripped this soil
since time began,
before the opening of ages
before the cypress and the olive,
before the grasses flourished.
My father came from a line of plowmen,
and my grandfather was a peasant
who taught me about the sun’s glory
before teaching me to read.
My home is a watchman’s shack
made of reeds and sticks
—Does my condition anger you?
There is no gentle name,
write down:
Arab.
The color of my hair, jet black—
eyes, brown—
trademarks,
a headband over a keffiyeh*
and a hand whose touch grates
rough as a rock.
My address is a weaponless village
with nameless streets.
All its men are in the field and quarry
—Does that anger you?
Write down, then
at the top of Page One:
I do not hate
and do not steal
but starve me, and I will eat
my assailant’s flesh.
Beware of my hunger
and of my anger.
Translated by John Mikhail Asfour
Athens Airport
Athens Airport boots us to other airports. The fighter said: “Where can I fight?” A pregnant woman blurted at him: “Where can we have our child?” An employee said: “Where can I invest my money?” An intellectual said: “Your money and mine?” The customs officers said: “Where do you come from?” We said: “From the sea.” “Your destination?” “The sea.” “Your address?” A woman in our group said: “My bundle is my village!” At Athens Airport we waited for years. A young couple got married and looked for a room in a hurry. The groom said: “Where can I deflower her?” We laughed and told him: “There’s no room here for such a wish, young man.” An analyst with us said: “They die so they may not die. They die overlooked.” “A writer said: “Our camp will inevitably fall. What do they want from us?” Athens Airport changes its people every day. But we have stayed put, seats upon seats, waiting for the sea. For how many years, Athens Airport?
Translated by Abdullah al-Udhari
They’d Love to See Me Dead
They’d love to see me dead so they can say: he was one of us, he belonged to us.
For twenty years I’ve heard those very steps banging on the night’s wall.
They came but did not open the door.
They have entered now. Then three of them went out: a poet, a killer and a reader. “Will you have a drink of wine?” I asked. “We’ll have a drink,” they said. “When will you shoot me?” I asked. They answered: “Take your time.” They prepared the glasses and went on singing for the people. I said: “When will you start killing me?” They said: “We have started. Why did you send shoes to the soul?” “So it can walk on the land,” I said. They said: “Why did you write a white poem when the land is jet black?” I answered: “Because thirty seas flow into my heart.” They said: “Why do you like French wine?” I said: “Because I deserve the loveliest woman.”
“How would you like your death?” “Blue like the stars pouring through the roof. Would you like some more wine?” They said: “We’ll have some.” I said: “I will ask you to do it slowly, to kill me slowly slowly so I can write the last poem for the wife of my heart.” But they laughed and stole from the house only the words which I was going to say to the wife of my heart….
Translated by Abdullah al-Udhari