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The Tormented of Heaven |
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Saadi Yousef
Translated from the Arabic by Salih J. Altoma
Naked
We are on our way to Allah
for shrouds we have only our blood;
for camphor, the eyeteeth of wolfish dogs. (*) The closed cell suddenly swung open
to let in a female soldier
our swollen eyes failed to clearly identify her
perhaps she was from an ambiguous world
she said nothing
she was dragging my brother’s bleeding body, like a worn-out mat. Barefoot
we will walk toward Allah
with putrid feet
with lacerated limbs Are the Americans Christians?
in our cell we have nothing for anointing the prostrate corpse
in our cell there is nothing but our blood clotting in our blood
and the odor coming from the continent of slaughterhouses
the Angels will not enter here. The air is stirring
it’s the wings of hell’s bats
The air is still. O Lord , we waited for you
our cells were open yesterday
we were lying motionless on its floor
and you, O Lord, did not come. But we are on our way to you
we’ll find the road to you even if you forsake us
we are your dead sons
we have trumpeted our Day of Resurrection
Tell your Prophets to open for us the doors:
the doors of cells and paradise
Tell them we are coming
we washed ourselves with dry sand (**)
the Angels know us all … one by one... London May 10, 2004
__ (*) Islamic method of bathing a dead body includes washing the body with a mixture of water and camphor.
(**) The poet uses here a Quranic verse which deals with ablution rituals before prayer. It recommends washing with dry sand or clean earth when water is not accessible.” And [if] ye find no water, then take for yourselves clean sand or earth, And rub therewith Your faces and hands.” The Quran IV: 43.
Sa ‘di Yusuf, (known in American poetry journals as Saadi Youssef) [b. 1934 Basrah, Iraq] is one of the most prolific and greatest contemporary Arab poets. He has published more than forty works of poetry and prose, including translations of selected poems by Walt Whitman. As a committed secular and revolutionary poet Yusuf is widely known for his uncompromising opposition to Saddam Husayn’s regime. Currently living in London, Yusuf has lived most of his life in exile in Arab and European countries. A collection of his poetry was recently published in the United States under the title Without an Alphabet, Without a Face (Graywolf, 2002). This poem is translated into English with the poet’s permission.
Salih J. Altoma is professor emeritus of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Indiana University. |
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The moment |
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In the room
On the roof terrace facing the sea,
The retired pirate prepares his meal –
Half a loaf of bread
A slice of meat
A bottle of vodka …
He shuts his door firmly
And from his ebony box he takes out his ledgers
His maps
His harbors.
Now he is happy
And alone. But the chest tattles
And the eyes are small clouds.
Who knocks on the door?
Who comes here following him to this room on the roof?
The retired pirate closes his ebony box
And the secrets of his ledgers
His maps
His harbors
And staggers a few steps to drink up the scent of the sea. Could it be the blind one knocking on the door?
The blind one in the form of a woman
Coming to befriend him at the moment his age is sealed? Beirut 14.4.1993 |
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That Rainy Day |
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Saadi Yousef
Not because a rainy day is strangely knocking at my window like a thief.
Not because I am dwelling in this watery steppe. Not because the sun has dwelt
In the books of travelers and poets. And not because…
I say: I am burdened by waiting angels; the trees are only trees, while I am looking for shade. The falling rain is not deep water. Through the skein of its pulse
Surge rivers, ships of timber and boats of papyrus. The rain does not reach me.
The rain does not moisten my lips. But the green railings there are shimmering
With watery light. And in the distance flowers and headstones quench their thirst.
No more squirrels or birds. My very pores open to the music. She was in the balcony. The sun rose in the corner of her garden, a bower for
Grassy tones and dry, rustling leaves. The woman was neither looking nor being looked at. The woman was absent. I, alone, was collecting the fragments of her
Image, her limbs, and the memory of a kiss one day in the corner café.
What planted this green in the blue?
Music. A sun from volcanoes islands. The woman is about moving, about taking a form. Now I glimpse a tress of straight hair, the fullness of a lower lip. Music. The balcony becomes the balcony of a house: a small table, two chairs, a bottle of wine, two glasses and some Spanish peaches. And in the corner a cactus. The woman turns. Now we are two. We shall dwell on the balcony. The sun will come to our glasses. We shall see the moment. Music. The falling rain is falling. We are behind the balcony’s glass screen. The room is a bit cold. Her room
Was charged with the smell of paint and the aroma of the Kirghiz carpet. The wetness of the day is sticky beneath my shirt. The woman gave me the ember of her lips. Did she slip the ember under my shirt? I feel like a wanderer in a land of Hot Springs and tores. My breathing is the continuous music of strings. My fingers are the bars. My breathing is the continuous music of strings. The music throbs. I don't see any rain. A crystal light falls across the glass screen.
This falling rain is falling.
Falling… I feel the hot rain. Minutes.
Minutes only and I shall make with your love a narrow bed.
Music. Translated by the author
London, September 2001 |
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Still Life |
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The house plant
Bends under the heavy air.
On the table
Among a full ashtray and a tobacco bag
Were bills of Gas & Electricity,
The ship sails on the wall
The bird pecks at the singer's head (A CD cover) I disturb my room,
It gets narrow.
The ship disappeared
Night sits in the corner
Wrapped up in the thick air. Saadi Yousef
London 1.02.04 * Translated by the author. |
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Puppet Theatre |
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Saadi Yousef
The girl who will sing her poems in the birds’ tongues
Is climbing up her six steps,
Knotting a cheap silk as her theatre screen
Laughing.
I give her the thread’s end.
She is joking with me:
You adore my legs!
I laugh.
In the tent’s entrance the wooden box
where birds are waiting for their birth moment
Out of thirsty beaks, broken wings and branches junk that will be painted.
In the wooden box a crown of golden paper.
The scoundrel king is waiting for the finger.
The sun is low.
The garden listens to the pulse of the child’s excited scream.
You are standing as an usher.
The joys and the songs and the trampling down of the crown
Will begin in a moment. The girl who climbed up is resting now.
Children who attended the show will soon be back to the cruel world
Where kings are still kings,
And the girl who makes the birds talks
Dwells in a house of nowhere. Translated by the author.
London 24/09/06 |
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