Love Poems by Marwan Ali
Funny, there’s nothing about you on WikiLeaks
Translated by Raphael Cohen
The trouble with Karl Marx
1
Party meetings without you are stupid and dull. The Communist Party is not to blame, of course.
2
Your father, the communist, is talking about how the people will seize power, I am thinking about stealing a kiss from you so as not to go home sad and lonely.
3
For your sake
I put up with a lot
the hypocrisy of comrades,
the bother of Marx and Lenin
and more than all that
having to read eight volumes of Das Kapital
in a single night
to not shatter your belief in me
as an activist
of the highest order.
Season
How could spring come in your absence?
Even the seasons now have no shame.
Forgetting
Your house
is very near.
I am teaching my footsteps
to forget.
Our way
We did not change
It was only that
we lost our way
after mosses and grasses
sprouted where
we had walked
hand in hand.
Street
The street you walk
cannot
hide
its joy.
Blue
Between the blue of the sea
and your blue skirt
the waves and the fish
took a wrong turn.
Barbara
I like
to call you Barbara
and read you the poem
by Jacques Prévert
certain that he
wrote it for you.
Poem
Any poem not about you
does not deserve a place
in my new poetry collection
Funny, there’s nothing about you on WikiLeaks
– obviously!
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