An Attempt to Write

 

 Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen

 

 

 

1

The poet wrote the title of his poem.

He was tired like a severed head

Alone like a desert falling into the sea

Lonely like a grave waiting for a corpse

Stolen by thieves.

When he attempted to write his poem

The head besieged him

The desert surrounded him

The corpse and the grave mock  him

And the thieves captured him very happily.

2

Time is dust.

The day is straw.

The hour is an ash.

When the poet caught

The first letter of dust

The first letter of straw

The first letter of ash

He turned into a letter without dot,

Without joy or fire.

3

I searched for my childhood in an old song.

I searched for it in the date palm of Babylon.

I asked Hilla’s* night about it.

I found it nowhere but in the palm of a child beggar

Sitting near an old bridge

Reaching out his hands to the frowning passers-by.

Now he laughs, then he weeps or sleeps.

4

The poet wrote his elegy

And searched for a listener but he found nobody

Only the Euphrates

Who listened and kissed it

And concealed it within his heart:

 In the middle of mud and fish.

 

5

The woman is in the mirror.

The mirror is in the bathroom.

The bathroom is in the drum.

The drum is in the dinar.

The dinar is in poverty.

Poverty is my friend

Poverty is my lovers,

My people and my sun.

6

The poet wrote the address of his grief

As well as the address of his post box;

Bankrupted to death

And the phone number of his pain.

That he sent to the elegant magazines and newspapers.

The magazines competed to publish these poems

And to full them with joyful colours.

But they forgot to reply

To the address of the bankrupt post box

And to the phone number of his great pain.

 

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* Hilla: an Iraqi city near old Babylon.

 

 

 (TM)

 

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