Poems by Abdel latif Moubarak Egyptian poet

 

It peeks from the window of our hearts,

And steps onto the paths that have drunk
From its spring, the tales.
Upon a thousand civilians who implore,
And thousands of throats whose echo
Is the roofs of houses.
Their lament still embraces them,
And gathers them,
A million prayers,
Except what it couldn’t contain.
And you, who are ascetic within your prison, waiting
For a glimpse of light,
Just to caress your forehead.
Your umbilical cord between you
And the homeland,
Knows you overcome your tears
And split your chest for the cities,
So that life may enter them,
Free from the gloomy darkness clinging
To every wall that the specter of silence
Has demolished.
These are thousands of throats whose echo
Is the roofs of houses.

****

The Scars of Salvation

Let the halos of my heart fall from my brow,
A light I thought I’d find while resting on the shoulder of the word,
The one that hums a tune through the folds of this poem.
Illuminate for others my journey, this bitter taste of a homeland’s pain,
The anguish that fills it, stirring with every dawn
That rises on a morning full of nonsense.
The word was powerless then,
Unable to forge a new space for confession,
Or pluck a bejeweled pearl from its sky
To gift to the poor, the orphans, the forgotten,
Those on the brink of death.
I know I am the zero from which all poets begin,
The seed whose sprout only grew in the shadow of my ancestors’ verses.
From them, I drew the strength to survive,
Dreaming of their blissful, generous seas.
I lean on them all with a pride that lifts me
Into realms bright with the light of their wisdom, O Lady Poem.
All I ever wanted from you was salvation,
To end on your shores.
I began you (or you began me) among the transients
In a city whose streets had all gone dark,
Forgotten by long wars, then awakened just once
By the triumph of survivors, and drops of hope
That thirst couldn’t defeat.
Between tables of gunpowder and napalm,
Scattered limbs and blood-stained walls,
Jackets lie vomiting on the sides of ruins,
With the words “I was here” scrawled upon them.
A hemorrhage of questions.
How I’ve longed for my poems to take them on,
A path to grief and to release.
I craft my shoot for the fated crowd,
And belong to the march coming from those forgotten lands
Hidden in the folds of shackles and prison cells,
The torment of hungry stomachs,
The gasping of tongues behind cries for departure,
The absence of hope for a coming brilliance
That carries on its face the radiance of the impossible.
Lady Poem, I know glory in your proof.
I know the secret in your river.
This is how we meet, and with us, we meet
A life that has no shrine,
A life that only survived through an impossible bargain
Between a bundle of thorns that grew just once
From the pain of salvation.
I am destined to live and to see the city
Be the first to bless the burning heat of a step toward freedom,
Swearing by the fading glory in its children’s eyes,
The honeyed treasures flowing over a new homeland.

****

Are you trying to die again?

Are you trying to die again?
Even though you
Died in a thousand poems.
And in every poem...
Your soul bleeds out of you.
Are you trying to die again,
And write a new poem?
Its letters... are my tears
And my sadness at your distance.
You gather in it the joy/laughter you planted
In the hearts of your lovers,
And you gather even the word/smile/breeze
The drawing in which you determined
How... we'll condemn you.
Were you planning a new surprise for us
The day your soul was full...
Of all the falsehood surrounding you
In clumsy steps?
Was the silent, virgin pain
Inside the gardens of your love,
On the land inhabited by the blood of your loved ones,
The last... sigh?
...
Are you trying to die again?
Even though you
Died in a thousand poems

****

Brilliance without identity

A secret still resides within your eyes, a pearl,
You confess… everything that never was.
You grant the heart a bolt
And should the nights grow too narrow for us to live,
The harvests of passion sometimes lay siege to us.
A sign of something… we comprehend it… we touch it,
It lived within the tremors of lightning,
Brilliance Without Identity.
In the silence, the nectar was held,
And the hidden heresy in the burning pulse,
Brandishing the light of longing,
Playing the melody of permanence,
The crowning explosion for the sorrow, stained
With blood… and with tears.
…..
And still, in your eyes, a joy remains,
Fertile in its roots… the salvation
For the disappointments of a tragic touch.
And I feel you, in my blood,
The fissures of feeling’s freshness,
For the ground of this seed,
From the ache of the masses,
An existence…
A being for the sense refined,
From the diaspora of memory.

****

The Ambush

I learned to grieve in silence,
As much as I learned to love you,
To surrender to your longing and die within it.
A bitter truth set me free:
That your love for me,
In reality,
Was a spider.
My simple dream was to find you,
Carrying my burdens,
Standing tall within my eyes,
My blood flowing through your veins.
I gave my heart to the sunrise,
Only to awaken and find you were a guillotine
In the hands of your own love.
And my love for you,
Was the whole point of the problem.
Your beginning was painful,
Your ending, crafted in deceit,
Cut to fit,
Without prayer.
I used to worship you,
Not even as a pagan to an idol.
I didn’t know the end of my love for you was nothingness,
Lost in regret.
I was like dough,
Shaped by your fingers.
I would find a future blooming
Under your sun, under your shadow,
And I’d forgive my past days
For ever
Having loved you.
Don’t deny I was the only one born
From your sky with two stars,
Two engravings on my forehead,
Perfectly matched.
The sun of dead truth was colored
Between my sincere words and your fake smile.
Your phony lines were created:
Sometimes an angel,
Sometimes destruction,
Sometimes your flaws were an epic poem
You’d tell with feigned innocence.
Your created devil didn’t leave
In the fire of your cruel loneliness.
Between the soft whisper of your voice
Filling an empty time,
I was there,
Remembering you calling him.
My heart was your toy,
You’d try it out.
It was no good except for being sad.
And for years,
When your dream would come to me and then leave,
I’d feel choked.
I’d become like the truth when it’s hanged
In the eyes of the wronged.
And for years,
When you were the cloud for me,
And the thirst in my tongue would howl,
Like wolves
Standing over a feast for the dead,
Waiting to share the meal.
My look was the orphan.
Your look… was the ambush.

****

Worthy of Your Dream…

And you, whose dream in reality
Still hasn’t come true…
Except for the remnants of silence in a moment of your quietude
Your word calls out to your death
Your word has become nothing but life itself
Strung like beads of a rosary in the hand of a nation
Upon which fear descends…
When trials befall it
It waits for salvation
Your truth in the formation of your letters
Falls upon the city’s brow
Between every green patch
An olive tree
And a thousand witnesses to the martyr's feast
When you decided to dream, forgetting your tear
Upon the wall
The cruelty of a day
Wandering over the cities of "Galilee"
And that same song of yours
Sleeping on the bed of a stranger, waiting
Witnessing forms of siege
Between praises for the seas
Between massacres and destruction
The demolition of bridges
You were the land… the covenant of writing
A poem from you is a cannon
A shell holding the saliva of steadfastness in its embrace
Peace, a rose, and a waking dream
Your fate is that you dreamed
Worthy of your dream, young man

****

Don't Rouse Me
 
My dates have lost their flavor,
The wind of distance, the relentless rain,
Has stripped away the season of my yearning.
I move further, only to find
My other half remains unquenched.
Still what lingers
Of your eyes, Of your lips,
Your form,
Your stature, draped in a gown of rich brocade,
I flee the hollow of paradise
Before the time is due.
I depart in the robes of a silent watchman,
A guardian over my dream, now done.
Oh, two words that leap within the soul,
Claiming your forbidden in the permitted,
Answers that summon the question.
Don't rouse me.
My dates have lost their flavor.
In the dream, blood still stains the brow of the streets
— My resting place.
Amidst the pyre, the tribe cast out my corpse,
When I sought to sever the heads of every idol.
The fire was not cool upon the heat of my step.
My voice that spread the secret of the King
Among the kind and loyal subjects
— My mournful voice —
Cries out for the Mantle of Truth
To be its shroud. Don't rouse me.

Abdel latif Moubarak
Egyptian poet