Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Six November-December 2024.
Arab Poets & Writers
Nero of the Fires, poem by Asaad AlFakhry.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Nero of the Fires
Rise up
Beasts of Nero
Surrounded
By the embers of the hearths
To witness
The slaughter of your bleeding celestial bull
The lamentations of Dante’s sad Hell
On the marble
The eternity of Purgatory and the gardens of its gentle breezes
Here you are, Nero
The loaves of Utnapishtim, deep in
The distant
Where the drowsiness of the pliable Gilgamesh
And his tigers
Are wrapped in the suspicions of the timings of the loaves of slumber
And the prayer
Of the blind trap of the temple at sunset.
***
Your praise
The toast of death on the balconies
Is hanging with
The limbs of Achilles
And your skilled fingers plunged
To its end
Here is Nero
You slaughtered the air in the throat of the whale
And you placed me in the vast
Patience
A mirror for Jonah who swallowed
The breast
Of the whale and slept on its generous amber lap.
***
Drowning
I am the abyss
Between
Your blood-stained palms, and I am
The fallen
Like a drunken boy singing beside
The flames
Here are your feeble steeds
Exchanging
Thunder for lightning, no land above it
Nor
Sky beneath their hooves
To take refuge.
***
With the mallets of thunder
We will shatter the mirrors of lightning with the blood
Of the passersby
And we will break the legs of your steeds at
The maelstrom of despair
Whose lights are traps for deception
And a lament for Amber
That does not illuminate
With the door of bewilderment, locked
With the keys of the longed-for scream whenever
The phoenix spreads
Its damp wings in the flames of
Nero’s fires
That mourn along the paths.
© Asaad AlFakhry
Asaad AlFakhry is a Syrian poet and critic residing in France. He has published four books, in poetry “The yearning of desire”, in literary criticism “The Narrative of the Senses”, “The Image of the Armenian in Arabic Literature,” and “Psychoanalysis and Literature”.
Salwa Gouda is an Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic at the English Language and Literature Department at Ain-Shams University. She holds a PhD in English literature and criticism. She received her education at Ain-Shams University and California State University in San Bernardino. Furthermore, she has published several academic books, including Lectures in English Poetry and introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, and others. She has also contributed to the translation of “The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers,” which includes poets, philosophers, historians, and men of letters, under the supervision of UNESCO. Also, her translated poetry anthology, entitled Dogs Pass Through My Fingers, was published recently through Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Additionally, her literary translations have been published in various international magazines.