As if you were self-made, O gypsy,
What did you do with our clay since that year?
*
You put on the place as you put on trousers of fire
Hastily. The earth has no role under your hand
Except to attend to travel’s gear: anklets
For water, a guitar for the air, and a reedpipe
So that India may become more distant, O gypsy, do not leave us as
The army leaves behind its distressing remains!
*
When, in the realms of the swallow, you descend on us
We open our doors to eternity, humbly. Your tents
Are a guitar for tramps. We rise and dance until the bloody
Sunset vanishes on your feet. Your tents
Are a guitar for the steeds of long ago raiders which return to the attack
To make the legends of the places
*
Whenever she moved a string her demon touched us. And we were transported
To another time. We broke our jugs, one
By one to keep time with her rhythm. We were neither good
Nor bad, as in fiction. She would
Move our destinies with her ten fingers,
Softly… softly strumming!
A cloud, the doves bore from our sleep
Will she come back tomorrow? No. They say: No,
The gypsy will not come back. The gypsy does not pass through a country
Twice. Who then will lead the steeds of this
Place to her race? Who will shine behind them
The silver of the places?
First Exercises on a Spanish Guitar
Two guitars
Exchanging a muwashah
And cutting
With the silk of their despair
The marble of our absence
From our door,
And setting the holm oak dancing
*
Two guitars…
*
A blue eternity carries us,
And two clouds descend
Into the sea near you,
Then two waves rear up
Over the stairs, licking at your steps
Above, and setting alight
The salt of shores in my blood
And fleeing
To the clouds of purple!
*
Two guitars…
*
The water weeps, and the pebbles, and the saffron
And the wind weeps:
‘Our tomorrow is no longer ours…’
The shadow weeps behind the hysteria of a horse
Touched by a string, and its range narrows
Between the knives and the abyss.
And so it chose a bow of vigour
*
Two guitars…
*
White songs for the brunette,
Time is shattered
So that her litter palanquin passes by two armies:
Egyptian and Hittite
And smoke rises
The coloured smoke of her adornment
Above the wreckage of the place…
*
Two guitars…
*
Nothing can take from you the Andalusia of time:
Nor the Samarqand of time
Except the steps of Nawahand:
That is a gazelle which has outstripped its own funeral
And flown upwind of the daisy
O love! O my sick illness
Enough, enough!
Do not forget your grave again
On my horse,
Two guitars will slay us, here
*
Two guitars…
Two guitars…
Seven Days of Love
Tuesday: Phoenix
It is enough that you pass by words
For the phoenix to find its form in us,
And for the spirit born of its spirit to give birth to a body…
Spirit cannot do without a body
To fire with itself and for itself, cannot do without a body
To purge the soul of what it has hidden from eternity
So let’s take fire, for nothing, but that we become one!
Wednesday: Narcissus
Twenty-five women are her age. She was born
As she wished… and walks around her picture
As if she was something else in the water: Night
I lack… to rush in myself And I lack
A love to leap over the tower… She herself distant
From her shadow, so that lightning passes between them
As a stranger passes in his poem…
Thursday: Creation
I have found my soul in my soul and outside
And you are between them a looking glass…
The earth visits you at times for adornment
And to rise to what causes dreams.
As for myself, I can be as
You left me yesterday, near to the water, divided
into sky and earth. Oh… where are they both?
Friday: Another Winter
If you go away, hang my dream
On the cupboard as a memento of yourself, or a memento
Of me. Another winter will come, and I see
Two doves on the chair, then I see
What you made with the coconut: from my language
Flowed the milk onto another mat
If you go, then take the winter season!
Saturday: The Marriage of the Dove
I am listening to my body: bees have gods
And neighing has rebec without number
I am the clouds, and you are the earth, which
The eternal wailing of desire supports against fence
I am listening to my body: Death has its fruits
And Life a life it renews
Only on a body… listening to a body
Sunday: The Place of al-Nahawand
He loves you, come closer, as a cloud… come closer
To the stranger at the window, he sobs for me:
I love her. Descend like a star… descend
Unto the traveller so that he continue to travel:
I love you. Spread out like mist… spread out
In the lover’s red rose, and get muddled up
Like the tent: get muddled up in the King’s seclusion…
Monday: Muwashah
I am passing by your name, where I am in seclusion
As a Damascene passes Andalusia
Here the lemon lights up for you the salt of my blood
And here a wind fell off the horse
I am passing by your name, no army restrains me
And no country. As if I were the last of the guard
Or a poet wander in his fears…
VI.
Ring the Curtain
Down…
The Testimony of Bertolt Brecht before a Military Court
(1967)
Your Honour!
I am not a soldier,
So what do you want from me?
What the court is talking about is no business of mine,
The past has swiftly gone into the past…
Without hearing a word from me.
The war has retired into the café for a rest…
And your airmen have returned safe
And the sky has broken in my language, Your Honour
– And this is my personal business –
But your subjects are dragging my sky behind them… delighted
And are overlooking my heart, and throwing banana skins
Down the well. They are passing quickly in front of me
And saying: Good evening, sometimes,
And coming into the courtyard of my house… quietly
And sleeping on the cloud of my sleep… securely
And speaking my very words,
In my stead,
To my window, and to the summer which sweats jasmine essence
And they re-dr
eam my own dream,
In my stead,
And they weep with my eyes psalms of longing
And sing, as I sang to olive and fig
To the partial and the whole in the hidden meaning
And they live my life just as they please,
In my stead,
And they tread carefully on my name…
And I, Your Honour am here
In the hall of the past, a prisoner
The war is over. Your officers have come back safe
And the vines have spread in my language, Your
Honour – and this is my personal business – if
My cell hems me in, the Earth is wide,
But your subjects are angrily examining my words
And calling out to Akhab and Jezebel: Come on, inherit
Naboth’s rich orchard!
And they say: God is ours
And the Earth of God as well
And no one else’s!
What do you want, Your Honour,
From a passer-by among passers-by?
In a country where executioner asks
His victims to recommend him for medals!
Now is the time for me to cry out
And drop the mask of words:
This is a cell, Sir, not a court
And I am witness and judge. You are the prosecution
So leave the bench, and go: you are free I am free,
Prisoner judge
Your airmen have come back safe
And the sky has broken in my first language –
And this is my personal business – so that
Our dead return to us – safe!
A Disagreement, Non-Linguistic, with Imru’ al-Qais
They rang the curtain down
Leaving to us room to return to others
Defective. We went up to the cinema screen
Smiling, as we should be on
The cinema screen, and we improvised words already prepared
For us, regretting the last opportunity
For martyrs. Then we took a bow submitting
Our names to those who are walking on either side. And we returned
To our tomorrow, defective…
*
They rang the curtain down
They triumphed
They passed over all our yesterday,
They forgave
Their victim his sins when he apologised
Words that would come into his mind,
They changed Time’s bell
And they triumphed…
*
When they brought us to the chapter before the last
We looked back: there was smoke
Towering up from time, white, over the gardens
Behind us. And the peacocks spread their fans
Of colour around Caesar’s message to those who repented
Of the words which were worn out. For example:
The description of a freedom that cannot find its bread. The description
Of bread without the salt of freedom, or praise of a dove
Flying far from longing…
Caesar’s message was like champagne to the smoke
Ascending from the balcony of Time
White…
*
They rang the curtain down
They triumphed
They photographed our skies to their heart’s content
One star at a time
They photographed our days to their heart’s content
One cloud at a time,
They changed Time’s bell
And they triumphed…
*
We looked at our role on the coloured tape,
But could not find a star to the North or a tent
To the South. We did not recognise our voice, ever.
Our blood did not speak over the microphones on
That day, the day we leaned on a language
Which wasted its heart when it changed track. No one
Said to Imru’ al-Qais: What have you done
With us and yourself? So go on
Caesar’s road, after smoke rising black from Time. Go on Caesar’s
Path, alone, alone, alone
And leave us, here, your language!
Successions for Another Time
It was a rushing day. I listened to the water
Which the past took and passed quickly on,
Underneath,
I see myself split in two:
I,
And my name…
*
In order to dream I need nothing: a little
Sky for me to visit will suffice for me to see
Time light and friendly
Around the dovecotes
*
A little of God’s word to the trees
Is enough for me to build with expressions
A secure refuge
For the cranes that the hunter missed…
*
How much did my memory have to preserve
The names. How many mistakes did I make in the spelling
Of verbs. But this star is
*
It was a rushing day. No one apologised
For anything. The clouds of tall trees
Did not fall on the street
And blood did not flash above words
*
All is quiet at the meeting of the two seas
Days have no data since today,
None dead and none alive. No truce,
No war on us or peace
*
And my life is in another place. It is unimportant
To describe a café and chat between two forsaken windows.
Or to describe an Autumn chewing
Mastic in this crowd
*
…And in order to dream I do not need
A large house. A little drowsiness of a wolf
In the forest suffices for me to see, above,
A sky for me to visit…
*
My life is in another place. It is not important
That Chingiz Khan’s daughter in her pants should see it
Or that a reader should see it entering into meaning
As ink in darkness
*
It was a rushing day. Tomorrow was passing
Coming from a tea party. Tomorrow we were!
And the Emperor was kind to us. We were
Tomorrow… witnessing the inauguration of the ruins…
*
Everything is quiet. It is not important
To describe blacksmiths who did not listen to
The tango, or the dead who sleep, as
They slept and did not apologise to Master History…
*
For me to dream, I do not need a night like this…
And a little sky for me to visit, will suffice
For me to see time light
And friendly,
And to sleep…
…When He Walks Away
The enemy drinking tea in our hut
Has a horse in the smoke. And a daughter who has
Thick eyebrows. A pair of brown eyes. Hair
Long as a night of songs on her shoulders. Her picture
Does not leave him whenever he comes to us asking for tea. But he
Does not speak to us about her affairs in the evening, and about
A horse left by the songs on the top of the hill… /
*
…In our hut the enemy relaxes without the rifle,
He leaves it on Grandfather’s chair. And he eats our bread
As would a guest. He dozes a little on
The bamboo seat. He strokes our cat’s fur.
And he constantly says to us:
Don’t blame the victim!
We ask him: Who is that?
And he says: Blood that the night does not dry… /
*
The buttons on his t
unic shine as he leaves
Good evening and greet our well
And the fig trees. And tread gently on
Our shadow in the barley fields. Greet our cypress
On the heights. And do not leave the house door open
At night. Do not forget that
The horse is afraid of aeroplanes,
And greet us, there, when Time allows… /
*
These are the words we would have liked
To say at the door… he hears them very
Very well, and he hides it with a quick cough
And casts it aside.
Why does he visit the victim every evening?
And memorize our proverbs like us?
And repeat our very songs
About our very appointments in the holy place?
Were it not for the pistol, reed pipe would blend with reed pipe… /
*
…The war will not end so long as the earth
In us revolves around itself!
So let us be good. He asked us to be good here
And read poetry to Yeats’s pilot:
I do not love those whom
I defend, as I do not hate
Those who are at war with me…
Then he comes out of our wooden hut,
And walks eighty metres to
Our house of stone there on the edge of plain… /
*