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14th Anniversary Edition, Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Seven Nov-Dec 2023.
Marquez is gone, poems by Ahmed Algaafary.
Marquez is gone
Marquez is gone
He left without showing any interest in me
And he never once sought to calm the raging atmosphere between my isolation and his generations
I always told my friends about the details of our sessions together
I used to narrate stories so well
Their amazement helps me
And their half false conviction
I have always felt grateful to Marquez
Who comes to the café after I leave
And he assures my fabricated stories
And adds details in an ordinary way
It is not compatible with him being a novelist who sits with storytellers like me at the café every day!
Yesterday
Marquez began to water the last lie whose seed I had expiated
The friends in the café noticed
How he sends tears
And distills them into a tag
So, my story shook
And raised
And it grew a tall stalk
Weak… fit for a blind
Or a shepherd’s staff
Or a flute
The important thing is that it is not papery
Therefore, it does not extend like a shadow to a passerby
A tall stem
If it floats on my river
The comers recover from cholera
Throughout the past year
If I joined my café
No surprisers
And no disbeliever!!
My customers bored
Because the usual man who frequents the café after I leave
With the normal style
He no longer performs his daily duties
In assuring my fabrications
Or watering my lies!!
Why do I travel
I travel
Because cities
And people
And the houses
And the streets
They all escaped the presses
And they were not lined up on the shelves for decoration or reading when the mobile phone finished charging
I travel
Because the age is one
Only one, unfortunately
It should not be wasted on one ordeal with its geography of pain
I must involve cities
And people
And houses
And other streets as causes of my wounds
The poet should not be with one wound
And the doer must not be specific and known
Do you deny it, you habitual bleeder
They despaired you by their abundance
Wounds and the hurtful ones
Then you will come out of yourself
Looking at your body with a divine smile
Pitying your crucifiers
Praying for them to have mercy
They will all walk the path of pains
Bringing the humidity of August
And a few books
– One of them is for Adonis out of modernity –
And one for an innocent of their mispronunciation of his name
And the rest is a poor edition of their complete works.
I travel
So that my memory protects my feet from the thorns that jumped out of the wreaths
Blessed is those who wear their memory
When they reached the Holy Valley, they removed it
And they became children
And it is the trick that God smiles and accepts
And if they continue to be existentialists
Who believe in the theory of evolution and development
Cities comfort them
And people
And the houses
And the streets
They are on a path devoid of the light of faith that the divines know
I travel
To receive an earthly light
That compensates me for my failure in body and social detection
As a prophet with no intermediary other than his desire to become a prophet
His father brags about the stars on his shoulders
And the heads of his relatives extend over the other families of his village
And it does not matter what he encounters during the dawn training exercises
And the revelation’s threat to toast him if he slept until dawn.
I travel
Because a phone tells me that I will meet God on a train by chance
Or in a museum ticket queue
Or next to me while I was watching a music band in the street
That charges me one Euro
While the King of Kings, the Sustainer and the Rich, watches them beside me
I travel …
Who, other than travel, can teach me this library?!
© Ahmed Algaafary
Ahmed Algaafary is an Egyptian poet, dramatist and novelist. He is a member of the Egyptian Writers Union. In addition, he holds a PhD in Political Science.