La brida (poema de Zakaria Mohammed, Palestina)

Vídeo tomado de la Web del Festival Internacionbal de Poesía de Medellín

Some poems translated into English:

Mohammed was born in 1951 in the Nablus area. He studied Arabic literature at Baghdad University. In addition to his poetry publications, he published his first novel in 1996 and a collection of plays in 1999. His poetry is considered to be one of the best examples of modernist Arabic poetry. He participated in the 1999 Medellin International Poetry Festival in Colombia, and the 2001 Arab World Institute poetry festival in Paris. He lives in Ramallah.

The Reapers

-- Who are you, trekking along rough roads,
sweat secreting from your bodies?
-- We are the reapers of the rolling hills.
We set out at dawn
and harvested the wind
and time
and hallucinations sprouting
like the grasses of the savanna
O! how weird our harvest can be
If the night hadn't fallen so soon
we would've reaped with our scythes
silence, death and stone
and descended toward the sea
and gathered the waves and their quavering
to make everything perfect,
perfect and definite.

Translated by Sharif Elmusa from 'Al-Karmel' magazine, No 67, Ramallah 2002 and reprinted from Banipal No 15/16.

The rose and the bull

At night the rose is dark
At night a black bull
flies from the rose
It pierces the skin
with its two silver horns
At night the rose is dark
The spilt blood
of the hapless passer-by
drips from its horns
At night the rose is dark
But in daylight
the rose's black bull
is only a shadow
lying in ambush
So beware
when you pick
the rose
Beware
Carry a dagger
close to your heart
to butcher
that bull
which lies
all day
folded in petals
at the heart of the rose

Night

Night is opening its poisonous flower
It seeps through the sky
like a tincture spilt into water
Night is unfurling its flower
for the solitary insomniacs
who stumble along from step to step
Night is enfolding the city
as the homeless come out
from their doorways and basements
Night is opening its poisonous flower
as dread rolls down the stairs
like a melon
The last one
Spare me
the last bullet in the revolver
so death can wait at the doorway
Spare me
the last gasp in the lungs
so breath can expire with hard labour
Spare me
the last copy of the key
so only the ghosts can get in

Translated by the author and Sarah Maguire. Reprinted from Banipal No7.
© Translation copyright Banipal and translator. All rights reserved.


A Tavern

Here the dead are carousing
Here they shake their heads
to the music of shroud bells.

Emigration

They're all gone
towards that place in the North
where the grasses grow
to the height of their breasts
They left behind them
tattered strips from their children's clothes
and the pegs of their tents
They're gone
Their children on the backs of mules
Their youths carrying baskets
and their sheep's bells
They were like a cloud
climbing up to heaven
The more they penetrated the land
the more their shadows expanded
and returned towards the camps
Their dogs were mute
They would surpass the migrating crowd , then sit down
their eyes watching
the moving shadows
as they ran back ward
like a dark river.

Zakaria Mohammed

Source of texts: www.sakakini.org