By: Moftah Al Ammari
T.: Ghazi Gheblawi
Lonely enough with what I am
That which is my body in the simple clothes
Running as if the lightenings are my shoes
Howling alone:
Oh, she-wolf
Take me from my mouth
Away from your bosom
Everything becomes in extreme rottenness and grandeur
The sparrows wear their mystic fear
And the terraces raving with extincted suns
Alone
Waiting every night
With fearful ears
For my house to fall down
Take me from my mouth
Oh, she-wolf
I am tired from my wife
When her hands tide me with confident imagination
Wake up my dear,
The morning has emerged
I am tired from my children
While they grow
Without toys or sweets
From the conspiracy
Of salty and non-running water
In our shabby districts
I am tired
From the Bedouins storming into the streets
With jeans trousers
Everything is in extreme rottenness and grandeur
Tranquility is not a roof
And women are not the same
Lonely and enough
Every dream that doesn’t lead to me is false
And every celebration of my death is nonsense
The ink is my kingdom
There is always a tiding for me to name
I paint a city
With children that never thirst
And draw another woman
And I might play with the fire that isn’t beside me
Then I howl alone:
Oh, she-wolf
Take me from my mouth
Since thirty summers
The evenings come barefooted
There was a body and hands for me here
And my window was beside me:
A moon spilling its shape on my mother
And I don’t understand
Why the love was so secret to the limit
That I became not understanding.
O, Mother, guide me to myself
She said: the wind is my wet nurse
So slow down
There is no milk in the cup to drink
I said: its fine
I will be satisfied with my lonely imagination
And let everything be in extreme rottenness and grandeur
Because we’re very quite
Always riding the bus
Crossing to the next day
Where the faces look bewildered to my shadow
And think:
A man walking entirely alone
Howling
Oh, she-wolf
Take from my mouth
Tripoli- 1991
* From the collection: Rajal’on yamshi Be’asrihi wahid’an (a man walking entirely alone) 1993 (Dar Ghareb)
** Moftah Al Ammari: born in 1956, a renowned Libyan poet, he started with writing short stories in the late 1970’s and by the mid 1980’s he emerged as one of the leading poets in Libya. He published 12 books.
