Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?

  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

  My own making above the marble…

  *

  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… /

  *