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Live Encounters Arab Poets in Translation August 2023
You sleep alone, poems by Musa Hawamdeh.
You sleep alone
You sleep alone with your head full of pictures
Men passed by and were not caught in the grip of dew
Forgive them, for they did not realize the secret of the rose in you
They have not tasted your morning breast milk
They did not touch the silk of your hands
And the mint of your heart
Your ribs are not cracked in their hands
And under their breath
Forgive them; they are arrogant males for no reason
Peacocks that fluff their feathers aimlessly
Bubbles of foam and speech
And you are more beautiful than the idea of femininity itself
You are more beautiful than the cruelty of lust
You are an angel who humbled himself and became the body of a woman
And a head full of images and regrets
An owl on the porch of the poem
The time the owl spends on the porch of the poem will pass
And the hoopoe will chase me in order to make the slanderer happy
when “pleasing the dead”
I want to intensify
And metaphorize
I have a desire to move the box of euphemism to the storage of absences.
I have a lust for borrowing some years of my former life
And put it in the algae of the coming day
I long for a decent life
And women who don’t look like women
And beings not like the ones I know
As for the trees, I like them as they are
And nature is complete
Perhaps it lacks some genius
But it is enough to keep me away from the madness of searching for life and
people in distant galaxies.
I urge words to mourn
And the women mourners to be near
And the prostitutes to be in love
I urge the city to forget
And the poet to remember
And the trees to self-conceit
And the fire on blackness
Evening shines
And autumn becomes more reckless
Like a paid violin
And lost
I am also a deserted violin and lost
And my musician is coward
He hides behind the hill of pain that hurts my chest
He hurts my chest and does not say
Far away are those fading nights
More distant than a breath that leaves its killer
And a dream that flew off its pillow
And a woman who used to tell stories to the wondrous sleep.
Oh my only friend
Oh my lonely regret
Show me the absolute grace
And the waist of the galaxy
To strike him with the ankle of the treacherous Achilles
And drag the arrogant Hector by the ear.
Oh my only friend
Oh my new regret
The time the owl spends on the balcony during the day will pass
And the hoopoe will follow me to reveal my secret to tyrants.
Oh my stubborn regret
Oh my poor friend
Get away from me
To continue my journey to distant Ithaca.
© Musa Hawamdeh
Musa Hawamdeh is a Jordanian poet of Palestinian origin residing in Egypt. He published more than eleven collections of poetry. UNESCO published his poem My Races of the Wind and My Titles of Rain in one of its annual publications. He won several awards, including the High Committee Award at the Jerash Festival in 2018 for his collection “I will go to nothingness” issued by the Egyptian General Book Authority, and he won the “La Plume” award, which is the Grand Prix awarded by the French “Fondation Oriani”, and the award of The annual French Terranova Festival in 2006. He also won the Australian Immigrant Prize for Poetry in 2011.