ِAraqeeb
By Yahya Al-Hammadi
Translated Hatem Al-Shamea
The upended world has righted itself!
O wolf—
Are you Yusuf?
Or Ya‘qub?!
I pointed to the distant homeland, reproachful:
“Our eyes have withered—
When will you return?”
I fell silent—
Twilight wheeled in farewell
Like blood dragged by its slain.
My staff of verse snapped—
And I broke it myself,
For when my staff breaks,
I rage.
The lovers’ pain—O loved ones—is agonizing,
And I am yours—
So vanish…
Or melt away.
Between a dying song
And a rose that will die,
Stands a poet,
Overcome.
I marvel how a poet laughs
While his sorrow hangs crucified
Between his eyelids!
Grief has wings—their feathers multiplied—
Every lament has its echo and gust.
I must place the entire poem
Into his hands—for he’s thief and thieved.
No poetry… save when you feel yourself
Drunk in his grip, devoured.
Tell me—by God!—how to forbid a tear
From falling, with your heart pierced?
This land is ill—
Its affliction grave—
Its truest son’s a traitor!
What does the pain spilt between me
And my poems whisper to itself?
Ayyub nursed his wound, supplicant—
But my whole land is Ayyub.
O you whom I pass each dusk,
With your inner north and south:
If night claims to be dawn,
And feels desired—
Why does the lover wait for morning?
Why trouble his beloved night?
Bid farewell to your last farewell, say:
“Longing for sins is sin.”
***
In my “blessed” homeland, grief has dwellings—
Their windows sting, my face is brick.
If I stay silent, the earth sighs;
If I speak, stones revolt.
Like a river—
It quenches others, yet wanders lost
Between resolve and banks.
I must journey back to myself—
I feel plundered.
I wrestled my grief alone, as if
I were tribes and nations despite ruin.
Death did not grant me justice,
Nor the homeland—
Dying of sorrow for its own gifted love.
Fear not, my unrest—all who betrayed
Shall regret it, for the mighty are overthrown.
I flee now from myself—
Leaving all who flee to me.
They said: “Poetry will kill you—
You’re in a land that nearly replaces Hell!”
I lied—believing myself a liar:
Who trusts the liar is false.
I was killed—yet woke to spite the killers,
And still I roam.
I remain “Yahya” (He Lives)—despite all my verse—
The wretched live only by name.
Death frets over me… rubs its eyes—
As I try to stab it… and repent.
Nothing convinces me I’m dead.
Nothing convinces it who’s sought!
***
Between me and you—O my self—
Is strangeness, yearning, exile, and sunset.
Between exile and longing I stand—
A journey insists… with no path to it!
A wounded hand reaches through smoke—
Leaping back to me… then recoiling.
I follow the turning, as ever—
Whirling like its whirl… and returning.
I must prepare the metaphor
Before words arrive and fate is fixed.
I must smother expectation
Before truths and secrets strike it.
I must reach the end—
But before the beginning lie sedition and wars.
Between beginning and end lies a land
Whose tomorrow is struck by yesterday’s loss.
Hunger there is a written decree,
Fear—though thriving—is imported.
Killing is easier than “a peaceful greeting.”
Shame is: having no flaws.
People are victim or killer—
Life here is want and exhaustion.
They sigh at their tables
Like a cursed beggar.
When will their promises bloom with longing?!
When will hearts be created for hearts?!
Must Doomsday rise? Its time has passed,
O madman!
So return your staff to your right hand—
Till those whose existence is erased depart,
And from the city’s edge, a homeland comes
Bearing the scars of the Prophet.
***
I fell silent… The tale ended.
Our crippled weapon hid behind terror.
I must pause briefly… to bid farewell—
My head bound in flames.
The poem must stay distant—
Every master of verse has his style.
