Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Six November-December 2024.
Arab Poets & Writers
There is no point to all this pain, poem by Kamal Abdel Hamid.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
There is no point to all this pain
In the beginning, I say: I love you, and I hate my soul hiding in the shadows like a guilty child, the very soul that has ensnared me in love, caught in a web of silk and thorns. My weeping soul, unashamed before a harsh emotion that brandishes a stick.
I love you, as I passionately follow the cosmic stage; I do not sympathize with the
villains as you do after every Arab film. The villains who despise the hero and the heroine and scheme during the story.
What should I do now with all this evil surrounding us? I must learn to hate deeply, to embody the essence of the dramatic conflict; it would not be fitting for someone like me to speak of forgiveness while ensnared by betrayal.
I lack the ability to hate deeply
Those with secondary and primary roles
I pay attention when the camera moves (Pan Left)
Because the director usually recommends
Showing the heart’s side
So that the viewer knows how much time is left
Until I fall, a loser
In that moment, I will die
In a (Close up) shot
My face filling the screen
I look deep into the frame
And mumble a single word
And people will guess the last thing I say
And curse open endings
It’s futile not to know that you are the last thing I say
It’s futile to be far away
when the director applauds the final scene
But I will love you after the film ends
I will love you free from the necessities of the script
There in death, far from the backstage
And the roles we master for nothing.
I love you
As I move through the vehicle of my body from one floor to another, from room
to living room, to a studio with an American kitchen that I only use rarely.
I love you
Here in front of the cold door, behind the demons of the window, next to the
refrigerator of disappointment and the corpses of despicable friends, in the
selfishness of the streets that hide your voice like gifts that cannot be returned. Here in front of the suffocating keyboard covered in cheap ash, ash that I gather in my lungs with an infinite passion, on the seat that endures me reluctantly as
it listens to a song, I repeat twenty times a day, in the despair that drags me by my shirt, and the sunken ships between my fingers.
I love you
The moment my friend stops complaining, in the seconds that separate one
comment from another, in the distraction of the bar that arouses the curiosity
of the sad, in the glance cast on the tables in search of something that does not
point to you, in the fleeting and deep cinematic kiss, in the coquetry of the
heroine when she goes off-script, so the director praises her mischievous
nature, in remembering your deep tenderness, your childish anger in front of women who passed through poems without a delicious pain.
I love you
In the losing stories, and the similarities between you and the lovers of dead
poets, in my fleeing steps to any direction, under the ceiling of coincidences, in the diaspora written on my forehead, when mixing coffee with water, in the first and last sip.
I love you
When my mother cries on the phone asking me to come back, and I can barely hold back my tears before God as I ask Him for steadfastness in love.
© Kamal Abdel Hamid
Kamal Abdel Hamid (1965) is an Egyptian journalist, essayist and poet. He has published seven literary books: four poetry collections, a book of essays, a book of texts, and a poetry anthology in English.
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.