Salah Faik`s "What is a Poem?"
Translated by Suneela Mubayi
Me, vagrant?
No: I took off my shirt and covered pebbles
that felt cold
As I came back from the cars of a stalled train
i chanced on the ribs of cats
upon benches, beneath them
letters forgotten by lovers
one of them left me a question: ”O poet,
What is a poem?“
A poem?
I did not know him
nor how he imagined that I roam here sometimes
It does not matter
what is important is that a poem
is to convince one‘s enemies
or to make them return to their mothers
it is to discover heights in your works
filled with hungry gazelles
and birds‘ feathers lost in valleys and between city buildings
A poem is when their dust
turns into a cloud
and the cloud into a ship on fire
(and how bad the relationship of eagles to clouds appears as they rush to another land!)
even if it sees you sitting on a boardwalk by the sea
cleaning the dust of your city off your vertebrae
for many years
A poem is when some person or animal, an insect or a snake
tickles you as you lie on the grass
near a path that does not lead to any windmill or anywhere
It is an open umbrella a dead man tossed away outside a graveyard
as he advanced toward his grave
surrounded by naked thieves
A poem is me disguised in the clothes of a miner
fired two hours ago
- here he is in the market, buying knives of steel
Or it is me in the garb of a failed saint
thrown out from a town
When I found him scavenging through the municipality building‘s garbage dumps
A poem is an unknown river carrying a boat with drunkards on it, singing
as a noisy ocean makes them vanish
It is my wife talking like a coffee table
My dog crying in a packed circus
It really is me selling hashish in a prison
Then, I unwind in the in the lap of a kangaroo
leaving my mouth open
- a sanctuary for crows.
[Translated from the Arabic by Suneela Mubayi]