By: Khaled Darwish *
Didn’t you close the door behind you when you entered the strip club?
And you yelled: bring me the waist of the waters;
You hug Jerusalem
Touching the girl’s breast with your eyes,
One morning that spilled,
We spilled and our means of living are expanding,
And whenever a bird sang inside us, we picked our weapons,
For a journey and a creed,
For a coming wedding and another leaving behind
The fields upon the winds that the dreamers will set its fires,
And all the dictionaries are lean,
Yearning for a Firozabad** ruling the powers of speech,
The narrators say you prevailed, and the dictionaries say you came
(Starved eyes will rain the last field denied by the lies of a near conquest)
You spread the sails of fires,
The fires ripen, in us, a yearning to meet the stranger.
Didn’t you close the door behind you, on a disgrace from the garden book?
And the day marched to you, hugging your spear,
You pierced its chest with planets that didn’t bow to you,
And a planet left, to announce the good news of your triumph till we quenched.
And you shouted:
“And no one is victorious today but me”
We were intoxicated with it,
And for whom came after you,
Why you laid the impossible for us?
And you know that we are many,
And we are few,
If the night sees its lovers with wailing.
So, these are your wines, take them with you!
Return them back to vines that cherish your triumph.
‘cause we loathe your battles,
We loathe the beautiful speech.
Is this the path?
We’ll walk on it, with the colour of your blood,
Let’s take a sock,
We’ll wipe with it a tear for the doves,
Open the door to follow you,
Let’s deny together, two forests and a banner
Let’s establish a new art,
and call it the art of mirrors.
Let’s set a festival and assassinated in the end.
___________
* Khaled Darwish: (1972-       ) A Libyan poet and writer, with more than five collections of poetry.
** Firozabad: A famous Arabic linguist know for the his Arabic dictionary Al Moheet.
*** To the read the original poem in Arabic click here