A library inside my mouth
Salah Faik
Translation
Hasan Naser
A tree has fallen
On a neighbour of mine,
He was asleep in a bed of its shadows.
I’d like to say a goodly word about him;
He, who has once put out a fire,
At my doorstep,
Sold me precious spoons
He had stolen from a hotel.
I won’t criticise him anymore.
Won’t attend his funeral
With a distasteful look on my face.
I will look after his other trees
After his woman, and certainly
His beautiful daughter.
**
I open my eyes in the middle of the night
Awakened by the breaths of my dog,
In vine are my pleas for him
To stop his terrible snoring.
Life has burdened me with useless things;
Stolen belongings and prolonged illusion
In which regiments of distant countries camp.
It’s time for the traitors to wander
And for my spine’s unbearable pain
To begin
**
Overlooking the ocean,
With no reason, you spit at each wave
That you have been spoiling every dawn;
Perhaps because you’re an out-cast,
Your muscles are hollowed ,
The suitcase you’re carrying
Is filled with ghosts.
You no longer can be
Familiar with any port.
**
I Laugh at the exiled whenever meet them
They’ve broken my teeth, stepped over my testicles
And left me with ever-dangling jaws
Opened to the city smoke.
I am unable to guess
Where in my endless depths
The smoke might end,
Though I am a thinker,
Known for my vicious arguments
With tourists and by-passers,
Voicing out my talent in mathematics
When I am alone
Or when the sky
Agrees to be my blanket.
***
I have been sad for ages
But am sadder nowadays, an absurd sadness
For burning sacked cities,
Their inhabitants are drowning
In a river to which swans resorted
Since Sumerian times.
This voice is travelling deep
Between sleeping mountains
Nothing returns
No echoes
***
I have written books everywhere,
On my doorstep,
At the fireplace, and in my mouth.
Books that are not for reading
But for illusions to meander,
Narration of the paradoxes.
Books to block the windows
Against winter and gales.
Anti-book books,
To whack fences’ and borders’ guards.
Books of ice, others to hide
The libraries away from invaders‘ eyes,
Evading their anger.
Books about immortality
Which only speaks at night.
