'tell her you buy the entire bucket if she lets you take a picture of her', my friend said.
I looked at her again. her hands black with mulberry, a rosary instead of a bracelet. her head turned away, not defying but simply indifferent, her entire attitude as serious and dignified as that of a little queen.
'please, let me see your eyes', I begged all of sudden, and something like the despair of a rejected lover could be heard in my voice.
slowly, she turned towards me, and looked at us. it was not interest lighting her face, nor smile, only a vague and sad amazement at a world in which somebody's eyes could inspire such wild passions. hers was the world of quiet mulberries, of things whose life and roots are one, breathing equally and peacefully since the beginning of time. deep down in the field, deep down in the woods.
when I pushed the button, I was glowing with humility.
All over the world, people light candles to remember the dead.
Often, they burn incense, too. In Japan, it is said that this light will show the dead souls their way.
In our churches, we light only candles, and place them inside black boxes which look like big tree houses in the church courtyard. Because the candles don't have each a different holder, in time, their wax will combine and merge into a single lava flow, indifferent of what is old and what is new.
Some light a candle and pray for the dead even before understanding what that means. Some go on doing the same after they've realized they will never understand. And even after knowing there is nothing to understand, others still do it, quietly, holding on to something like hope, or a dream.
The hand lighting the candle, the hand burning incense, the young hand and the old hand, oh how much they are alike in their frailty.
Tonight I don't want any more images, just the song, even in this silence. In this light, in this darkness.
The voice singing for the voiceless.
Kamilya Jubran
Amshi
Text: Paul Shaoul in Leaves of the Absent Translation to English: Omnia Amin
Walking for days
In a low voice I count trees, hats, streets..
In a low voice .. I walk in a low voice
For several trees .. hats and streets
For several years I walk in a low voice
For several low voices in trees, hats and walls.
For several deaths.
Nafad Al-Ahwal 2
Text: Paul Shaoul Translation to English: Omnia Amin
I stood in the middle of the room searching for my cases.
I inspected the lamp, the ashtray, loss and gain, the door and the statues. I got belittled in my own eyes so I stood in front of the mirror for long to see my face. I scrutinized the air full of smoke and coughs. I almost erased and forgot it.
I got belittled and belittled until I stood for long in front of the door to enter, then to exit, and then without a sound I stretched on the armless, open and mute bed. There I remembered what happened.
I remembered the day I was killed, raped, cut to pieces lemon by lemon, cigarette by cigarette, was ripped and for the first time I cried for my death and for nature.
Aina Tantahi
Text: Aicha Arnaout Translation to English: Omnia Amin
The snow has won. Let's hunt down the beast of memory, that black dog ravishing my breast.
Monday, 10 November 2008
this silence.
I come before you as if you were God. I know, people don't usually do such sort of things but I could never be bothered with the small details of breathing.
If my body fails to adore you, I will punish it. My eyes, I will say to my eyes, if you fail to see through his blade of grass, I will take you out of my eyes. My mouth, I will say to my mouth, if you fail to glow beyond the word and its absence, if you fail to open as the sin at dusk, I will take you out of my mouth. My blood and my bones, I will say to you then, if you fail to build his house, his temple of snow, his ark of sorrow, his throne of wine I will take you out of my blood and my bones
until I, stripped of myself, learn to be.
Still, Ingeborg knows better, after all she writes about Todesarten, ways to die:
Und ich muss erzählen, ich werde erzählen, bald gibt es nichts mehr... Denn wenn I. nicht zu mir gehören sollte, wie ich zu ihm gehöre, dann wird er eines Tages existieren in einem gewöhnlichen Leben, und er wird davon gewöhnlich werden, nicht mehr gefeiert werden, aber I. will vielleicht nichts anderes als sein einfaches Leben, und ich habe ihm ... ein Stück Leben schwierig gemacht. I. sagt lachend, aber nur einmal: Ich kann dort nicht atmen, wo du mich hinstellst, bitte nicht so hoch hinauf, trag niemand mehr in die dünne Luft, das rat ich dir, das lern noch für später! Ich habe nicht gesagt: Aber wenn soll ich noch nach dir? aber du denkst doch nicht, dass ich nach dir? ich lerne lieber noch alles für dich. Für sonst niemand mehr.
(Malina)
And what if all is useless? in spite of all that learning, of becoming the work of art, what if nothing is enough, ever enough? the word is helpless, the image worthless. I have to find a way to make sense again, a way to continue. until then, silence, the most unbearable thing, is the only thing I - hope to - bear.
the untold stories plunging their roots into the bone of my heart poisonous and hungry the unwritten sisters and daughters of mine agitating their dark foliage in me
listen to me you to whose feet my untold stories my unwritten bodies of despair command me to kneel they put a rope around my neck they take my mouth they want revenge they tear me down in search of hear me out you to whose feet I don't
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so. Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall, not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.
Is there then a world where I rule absolutely on fate? A time I bind with chains of signs? An existence become endless at my bidding?
The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
Wislawa Szymborska(from The Joy of Writing)
Note: I chose this quote in response to Kubla's comment on my previous post, in which he argues that writing doesn't get us anywhere and wonders why we keep on writing anyway. I have mixed feelings about this poem, I like the first part but not the ending, I don't know about the revenge of a mortal hand, even if I understand that this can be a motivation for many. I don't think there is a time we can bind with chains of signs. No time can be bound, there is no 'next time', we can never begin again. Still, it is a poet's answer and maybe when the words desert us, we should always turn to those voices which resound in our hearts. and I don't believe in the joy of writing either, but then I am not a writer. nevertheless, I believe in the joy of photographing. no, maybe I am wrong: when the words desert us, we should turn to images and sounds and most of all, to gestures. the tenderness and yet ambiguity of a mortal hand.
nu trebuie să povesteşti în poezie-am citit un sfat către un tânăr poet-deci să nu povestesc cum,foarte devreme, ea se scula dimineaţa,şi aşezându-se pe pat aştepta să i se liniştească respiraţia,cu faţa în mâini- să nu spun nimic despre chipul ei atâta de obosit încât i se încovoiau umerii,în faţa oglinzii,când se pieptăna încet.să nu-mi mărturisesc spaimele lângă faţa ei înstrăinată,întoarsă de la mine. să nu umblu cu versuri,ca şi cu oglinda în mâini în care se răsfrâng acele dimineţi cu lumina cenuşie dinainte de zori.poezia nu trebuie să fie reprezentare, serie de imagini-aşa scrie.poezia trebuie să fie vorbire interioară.adică tot eu să vorbesc despre faţa ei înecându-se,căutându-şi respiraţia?însă atunci ar fi numai felul în care eu vorbesc despre faţa ei,despre mişcările încetinite prin straturi de remuşcări tulburi,de gânduri doar ale mele, ale imaginii ei-ar fi numai un chip,o imagine- şi ea-adevărata ei fiinţă?
Mircea Ivănescu (Poezia e altceva?)
You must not narrate in poetry - I once read this piece of advice to a young poet - so I must not narrate how, very early, she would get up in the morning, and sit down on the bed, and wait for her breath to be still, her face in her hands - I must tell nothing of her face so tired that her shoulders bent, in front of the mirror, as she combed herself slowly. I must not confess my fears to her estranged face, turned away from me. I must not use verses, as I do the mirror reflecting those mornings with the grey light before dawn. Poetry must not be representation, a series of images - so it is written. Poetry must be inward talk. Now is it me who should speak about her face choking, struggling for breath? Then it would only be the way in which I speak about her face, about the gestures slowed down through layers of blurred remorses, of thoughts all mine, of her image - it would be just a likeness, an image - and she - her true self then?
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress bids me wear them, warm them, until evening when I´ll brush her hair. At six, I place them round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,
resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.
She´s beautiful. I dream about her in my attic bed; picture her dancing with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.
I dust her shoulders with a rabbit´s foot, watch the soft blush seep through her skin like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass my red lips part as though I want to speak.
Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see her every movement in my head.... Undressing, taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way
she always does.... And I lie here awake, knowing the pearls are cooling even now in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night I feel their absence and I burn.
I am lost the gold dripping off your fingers the useless gold making my hair heavy too heavy for this life the gold dripping off your feet the weary gold making my breasts heavy too heavy for this death all that gold I used to be the gentian growing out of your footstep light and soft I used to be I turned into gold that tired gold all that gold heavy gold that you don't need I am lost
... [ich] höre nicht auf, Ivan, der noch eine Viertelstunde schlafen darf, im Halbdunkel anzusehen, zu hoffen, zu betteln und zu meinen, einen Satz gehört zu haben, der nicht nur von der Müdigkeit gekommen ist, einen Satz, der mich versichert in der Welt ... aber da Ivan mich nicht liebt, mich auch nicht braucht, warum sollte er mich eines Tages lieben oder brauchen? Er sieht nur mein glatter werdendes Gesicht und freut sich, wenn er mich zum Lachen bringt, und er wird mir wieder erklären, dass wir gegen alles versichert sind, wie unsere Autos, gegen die Erdbeben und die Hurrikane, gegen die Diebstähle und die Unfälle, gegen die Feuerbrünste und gegen den Hagel, aber ich bin versichert in einem Satz und in sonst nichts. Die Welt kennt keine Versicherung fuer mich.
Ingeborg Bachmann (Malina)
for a, who humbled me by saying that my writing reminds her of Ingeborg's.
I entered into him as into a rose garden. Young and spoiled, fluttering my black tides, my hair undone, my dance unfolding into the evening maze which was his. Easy the way out, I thought back then, I will teach the garden to surrender, the thorns to be soft on my thighs, the scents to need me, the time to be good and behave. And look at me, look at me now, after so many years, you who sit out there at your small tables and eat your dinners and make love to your wives and put your children to bed, all that quiet breathing in and out of 'life', or what you have decided to call as such. Barely alive, my dance folded back into the evening maze which is still his, I wait for the garden to let me out, I beg the time to 'resume his course', or what you have decided that time usually does.
There is no such thing as a merciful rose, I have learned, I who had thought to be the teacher, the imperial sister, the courtesan with the cruelest smile. He forgets that I am still there, I am sure of it. Only at times, when he talks matter-of-factly about the autumn of his soul and nobody can make out if he is serious or not, as it often happens, I wonder if he doesn't mean me.
i want to take this poem on a long train journey through old countries and foreign stations i want to forget it so that it can find its way back to me dog eared and tattered i want to hear it wheezed in other languages tobacco stained, bloodied a survivor’s tale
i want to bring this poem to you open it out in some bar or café where you can see it sunlit lined and underlined road-worn, used and there we will hear the poem in each others’ mouths and there we will begin to talk, to see, to know
