translation: MOHAMED NEJAH KHEMAKHEM
Beyond the bushes, there is something
happening.
The deer learns caution.
Who can bear a deaf story that turns the truth into white-black scenes ?
There is something.
The deer jumps between distraction and caution.
The deer learns to gather itself.
The scenes won’t reveal anything new
perhaps their voice stretches farther, to reach the raiders in our ears,
and the indecision in our eyes overlooks the
colour, and close shots.
After the birth date, that is what the deer would have learned
to stop before seeking nourishment.
In a previous scene,
the voice invaded its companion and suspended its hymn within her chest.
Distant shots are disgraceful when our tongues are stuck in it.
The deer learns to beat the breast to eat.
The voice continues.
The next story tells that the voice’s shape fails to reach our ears because of humidity and the possibility of a near drought.
Alone, it suspends its ear on the wall.
On that same wall: leave it before entering.
Who can bear a deaf story?
The deer learns to jump before distraction.
Don’t ask the scholar for advice,
rather give him an answer about the swallows
you saw in Spain over bone dry fields,
and the old carps’ milky eyes
in an antique pond, and the wind-swept horses
in Brittany – right out there
on the furthest leaf of grass
above the sea.
Take notes, carefully, word by word,
punctuate. Go to classes,
keep cool. To hell with it!
All because the idiot remembers butterflies!
His dreamland beds float before him!
He hears the murmur of the salted family!
His beetles devour each other’s legs!
So you may after all ask the scholar
whether he ever watched the migration of the eel at close quarters.
I possess things.
I take them out and look at them.
They are good things: watches, cups,
a Chinese vase, music by Mozart,
shoe laces, a glass of marinated herring
that will keep for three months.
After that I don’t possess them any more
unless I eat them.
Which I do.
I possess shoes.
I take them out to look at them.
Some are brown,
some black
for dancing, others
for walking,
well greased
for my feet’s sake.
There is the TV,
unfortunately just black and white.
I am not colour-blind.
I own the money I’ve got.
I take it out and look at it.
I possess a butterfly
which I killed as a boy,
and I’ve made a wooden box
for the butterfly. It is decorating
my wall, illuminating
childhood memories. A peacock butterfly.
I have no others.
I was taught dancing steps
as a boy, and I have black
dancing shoes, well polished,
ready if chance would have it.
I have books about sorrow, plants
and religious philosophy. The latter
in two volumes. I have read them.
So I possess a bit of religious philosophy.
I don’t possess a wife. I borrow.
I keep the dancing going
at home. I eat
marinated herring. I grease my boots
for my feet’s sake.
I have aches and pains,
nothing serious. I don’t possess
the places where it aches.
I dance. I see. I do. I see
my peacock butterfly.
I really do.
I don’t possess a son.
I eat marinated herring
before their sell-by date,
and what if I die!
They are quite tasty.
Next time I’ll buy those in madeira.
I grease my boots.
I listen to Mozart.
I drop my Chinese vase,
and I glue my Chinese vase together.
Perhaps I have borrowed son
who will come home to me.
Then I shall possess my son.
We’ll eat herring in madeira. We’ll look
at his butterflies. We shall dance
if my son knows how.
translation: GHAZI I. GHEBLAWI
Oh, my god, why must we defend you?
Only in the colour that we don’t want
Why ought we pray by your metaphorical names?
And borrow the glass for the dates and tombs
Where the dream takes the prophets every night,
And rests at dawn in the proclaimed ports in the name of the sects, the turbans, and the rulers.
And if the buried daughter was asked?
She said “in the morning
When the night hastens the scandalous morning
So, to show me his resemblance perfectly before the soil
And touch his index finger,
So, that the desert is for me
And I am for the sands, and all the sand is for me.
In the upcoming winter, the sky was clouds
And the sands, trees of Tallah*"
* Lote-tree
You don’t even deserve to live
His spear glimmered
And he came back drawing his smile
He will return tomorrow surrounded by triumph
And thousands of newspapers on the great hero
And thousands of poems will welcome him
And we will offer him our girls
For sharper spears
And naked solders
I catch myself committing to her
Then, I gave an order of expulsion
So, she won’t come back, only with the birds blooming in her hands
And tulips, crops declared for export
And many of the legitimate sons who look like me
And more of the skies with the colour of her eyes
And the cheers that is awaiting my return
And with opening the history of publishing.
Maybe it’s poetry
The supper last night
And the blood that we drank on the edge of our wounds, or the absent wish that visited us yesterday,
It has left and didn’t bother for the winds that stayed attached to our clothes, hiding our confusion, and our need for absence,
So, is there a time to sit away from each other, our inflamed edges celebrating us at the zero degree of inflammation? And returns back when we are unable to raise our next cup.
So, is it poetry?
My brothers, which road am I walking in this ruin?
On which road will we meet our desired eyes? And our hands that swims in mountain passes of whiteness, without fearing the grounds, or the capture of eyes, and the squeezing of the hands,
So, it sinks where the shores are wider, and the redness closer.
So, is it poetry?
My brothers,
And the drink raises without alert
And the love catches me committing to her
And the fire,
The fire don’t tarnish here,
And you.
Ramadan Ramez Enwesri is a novelist and poet, born in Egypt, currently working in Libya.
