Two Poems - Ahmed Saleh
translated from Arabic by Ghassan Bardawil
Should I die now or should I wait?
I write so that the stories dont end
And so the war will end
I must write
Nothingness
So that my emotions remain awake
And so I dont lose my humanity
***
My mother never taught me tatreez
And how to mend my hemmoraging pain
From the tape of memory
But she taught me
The language of the proletariat and the meek
And chasing after bags of flour
***
I learned relinquishment early
I left the face of God in its place
And I grasp the hand of my love
Begging forgiveness
I reclined the edge of my head on her shoulders
Like a downcast tree
Weighed down by absence and massacres
Then I spoke to her about my dreams
Mangled
Drowned in rot
I spoke gently
With intense kindness
About how we can
knit from the cotton of clouds and almond trees
socks for the butterflies and reels for publishing
Turn the prisons, detention cells, and torture chambers
to fields and gardens and songs
And the armament factories, the ogres and beards
To cinema houses, theatres, and taverns
And the tanks, armored vehicles, and places of worship
Into jewelry and earrings for the women
And the windows of dried fruit vendors
And how is it that her lips
Trembling From which springs cascade with abundance
Can convert bombs to nourishment
And the emptines within me
To nests for birds
***
I am now alone in the room
Gnawing on my fingernails
Smoking marijuana and consuming sertraline
And antidepressants
To end the cries of a man who’s voice leaks through gaps in the door
Since the morning
He calls out unfamiliar names, and says:
“I am a flock of the perished, searching for a woman who smells of apples with hair flowing like valley flowers, have you seen her?!”
And even if he becomes spent from chasing after his rubbles
And leaves
Then who will cease the knives skewering my mind?
***
I wrote of war as I lived it, not as others observe it
And I wrote of love as I dream of it, not as others live it
I completed my duties under compulsion, not as others complete theirs
I endured her most dreadful death
The most painful loss
Her most horrible nightmares
Awake
I gaze at the fence on her boundaries
With fever kneaded eyes
I glimpse inside them my freedom
And a loaf of bread and electricity poles
And victims of slow starvation
Crushed below the debris of their homes
Burned alive
I dipped my fingers into a platter of misery
And consumed it like a reluctant bird
I sang barefoot to the nations
And I invented new ways to kiss
And to walk above the clouds
I danced for the clouds and lemon trees and the sea waves
And yet,
The bullet prevailed against me
And etched on my body maps of mines and displacement
You uttered me like the sea pronounces its dead waves
In a parallel world
In a parallel world
It was possible for these birds,
Which feed on the trash of the universe in Gaza
And drown in a river of exhaustion and darkness
And their bodies smashed beneath the rain of hunger
And the rising plumes of smoke
From the chimney of the relentless incinerator,
To accrue prizes in physics, mathematics, and literature
And the various sports
To fly in skies filled with shades of blue
To have choices, plentiful and exceptional
To enjoy the most beautiful images of prosperity and peace
For us to see their names and images on television screens
As they chant
create
Invent
Spread love
Dance in the streets
And fly with the freedom of the sky
They sent the sun as seeds for the peasants
And love as food
For the deprived and bereaved
As joy flutters around them like butterflies
It smiles and distributes to them a few candies
And lots of warmth
Rather they end up as breaking news
The news channels chewing their flesh
And the coffins
And the devil's tongues in washington
And the mills of imperialism behind shut windows
Without symbolism
Or divinity
Like numbers eliminated by time's absurdity
And the debauchery of the civilized world
In the face of painful and deliberate scenes
That crush our capacity to comprehend or feel
And washout the dust of night on our nightmares
And blinds us from seeing them
Do not forget their names,
their torn clothes,
And the sound of their loud laughter.
Ahmed Saleh is a Palestinian writer, poet, and cultural activist. He was born in Gaza in 1998. He has been living in Brussels for a year, seeking asylum, and his family lives in a refugee camp in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza. He studied business administration and political science, and he is active in many cultural and artistic institutions in Gaza and Belgium. He writes articles in English and Arabic, through which he expresses the Palestinian experience in Gaza during the years of its siege and deprivation of life.
You can find him on instagram here.
And you can donate to get his family out of Gaza here.
Ghassan Bardawil is a musician, writer and translator living in Brussels. A loud activist and dedicated artist, he is passionate about history and identity in relation to artistic expression.