"Ila Sayyid al-Walima" appeared in Sargon Boulus` posthumous collection `Azma Ukhra li-Kalb al-Qabila (Another Bone for the Tribe`s Dog) (Baghdad and Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2008)
To the Master of the Banquet
If you are a master
give us some bread
a drop of medicine for the sick!
You, who call yourself a master,
give to those who walked
in all these funeral processions
bewildered in the dream of disaster
for whom a cloud passing through the sky of slaughter
or a child’s skull, light as a paper boat
is sufficient reward
for their daily prayer
For them
spread a white sheet
a page in a book no one has written
The pure gravy of pains
sopped bread in grief broth
The roots of days extending
to the cellar of mushrooms and water moss
in the darkness of a head
Dizzy under bombing
under your huge military boot
And let the meat roast!
Let the sheep’s stump turn
over the quiet fire of greed
until the skewer is red
in your hand!
And let this banquet
be lean
like the seven cows
in Pharos’s dream!
Let this banquet. . .
Let it
be!
Translated by Sinan Antoon