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POEMS
IN ENGLISH
Old Collection |
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Anwar Al-Ghassani
(Updated July, 25, 1997) (Poems not identified as translations were written directly in English) Elegy I (for Lidia Vladimirova Tasseva) No hope of retrieving
your face given to me with coffee Salt, stones,
water and oil At night, fragrance
of kisses A life it was,
parallel Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Elegy III (for L.W.T.) The skin of your
shoulders, O reinvent my
sleep, Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Elegy IV (for L.W.T.) I decline to hear
your voice singing: Signor! Signor! Your voice extracted
our moments Bitterness, in
your voice, Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Elegy V (for Lidia W.T.) Though my eyes
were insatiable, Now, in my memory,
Is it you, or
is it the image, Where are you,
pristine being, Anwar Al-Ghassani
Al-Khurfa [ Injana and its hinterland ] 1 Region of sterilized earth and storms of drizzling, burning scents, imprudent, earth of leather, flatness eroded by wind. Emptiness. No excrescence save some pebbles, no trees. Dust columns arise, then wilt and die. At night, lizards remain hours with eyes fixed at the moon. At dawn, in dampness, seeds, self-forgotten for ages, awake, but the sun appears, disperses the dew. The seeds lose memory and return to hibernate. Here and there, traces of feet en route to the horizon. Where did they come from, when, where did they go? 2 Plain earth and eroded trails. A sun obsessed by greenness, estranged. Zenith and extension. Here is stiff aridness, moisture grabber. Here is pastoral muteness at sunset, when sheep have no concern but to ruminate. 3 They are over there, hunting hyenas and gazelles. A cloud of cold dust took them to the waters of fata morgana. There, where lawns, irrigated at midday, map the earth. They crossed over long afternoon shadows with their golden stars, leaving traces in the thick fragile soil. These men, what took them out of their brown beds, sliding slenderly through historic gaps? What festivities, banquets, in the desert evening attracted rifle smoke to the cold stone? Or were they mouths of sacred innocence, in their memories, that made them feel sorrow for the faded joy in this waste? In this land, neighboring happiness in old-new hearts. In hearts, oscillating between agony and richness of quiet moments, locked up in their daily making, not recognizing themselves. 4 This region, hovering over a spiral orbit, is residue of an absent sea. This region is a dehydrated sea shaded with chalk, not a sea with closed green, but a sea in which no fishy turtles, strained under the deepened sun, are resting upon sand stones. These are rivers without banks, unlike seas framed by coasts. They are traces of scattered currents, humid landing spots beneath the stones and in the thorn channels. These silent shadows are born of the sun, live, then die in the evening, making room for smaller, dark, rosy shadows under the moon, and for other tiny, young and stealthy shadows, born of the stars' ceiling, burnished by dazzling black alcohol. Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Family Talk (for Mahmoud Sami Jarjis Bek Al Ahmed Pasha) You never matured
and remained a stripling, But your lucid
mind perceived our search Now I realize,
Since you are cheerful, Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Beethoven: Concert for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 This sequence
of excitement and sleep Here I am. But
my return extends Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Gardens Beasts and reptilia
Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Envisions of Bulgaria: Kavarna The Bay At noontide, the sand is flowing between the rocks. A stream receding to its dried up spring. Light sweeping all over the serene place. Phantoms descend from the hill, disappear among the people at the beach - noisy, water splashing, eating melons under sunshades. Tunes, audio hideouts, jingle in the softening wind - then the silence. Icon Not the church, the stained glass windows, eloquent, humming to sunflower fields. A negative of the meeting at Kavarna Municipal Hall: transparent heads and hollow torsos of babies with their mothers. Collective spirit of playfulness. Eclipsed joy of being alive. Pride of not missing the faith which only the company of nonviolent people can offer. A drifting scene. We stay here, on this side of the divide, floating over the water. Sensible Horizon
Offerings: screaming roses and cheese. Sea breeze spreading into the "Chaika" restaurant. "And thou art still thinking of the forty virgins - protesting against the invaders - flying from the rock down to the sea at Cape Kaliakra? Roses for you! Don't shout 'Heavens! What vegetables!' Don't smash a window in the plane to toss them down from 30.000 ft. altitude. Don't abandon them in the plane either. That would hurt the old man." The Dance Party
Thick is the night. The names of the objects in the bay, given by renegade minds, are being extinguished. Objects, sounds, lights, and dancers intermingle, loose distinctiveness, and glow. An energy, native of seaside night, a gentle storm, sways them between sensed danger and homeliness. After a while, they slow down, the earth is relaxed and the scene is dry. Post-Deluge Rose oil in the crystal glass. Here is a day, and a ration of air to caress your body, and over there an arc of dry branches for the entrance to your future open space, overlooking the Bay of Kavarna. Anwar Al-Ghassani
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Serendipity Darkened air has the night. Passionflowers
climb glass columns, No evaporating
bodies in fire chambers or in the open. You have triumphed
over yourselves, Anwar Al-Ghassani
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I love India
Cold and warmth
of Indian food. Dark hairs drenched
in olive oil; White garments
fluttering in the breeze; How these eyes,
so voluptuous, Men and women
are ideas, It is not the
mouth that is crying, |
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