Live Encounters Arab Women Poets & Writers June 2026
The Legend of Time, poems Ghada Kamal.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
The Legend of Time
That one day you wake up
to find one of your fingers missing
or that your bedsheet wasn’t the right color for your dream
Bedroom ceilings are pregnant with stories beyond what their walls can hold
Black is the origin of all colors
and white is their patron saint.
I don’t like to grow old in time
nor to go back
How complex time’s equations are
where Lorca got lost when he ventured into the legend of time
The elder
The young
The child who feared his grave
and the cat who died from the fools’ amusement
All of life’s equations are governed by time
The clock
hands moving with a sound like heartbeats
Love is a three-way relationship
You
the other
time
I knew a friend who died of cardiac arrest
as if someone hung up the phone
and whispered to him: take off your coat slowly
and walk toward weightlessness.
One last tango
Our first astonishment will remain the most beautiful.
Who can count the number of spoons in the kitchen
or the plates broken on purpose or by accident over time
What are the numbers of the dead
how many bullets have been used
how many are the missing.
Phosphorescent dragons are beautiful
The cotton candy vendor is light on his feet
Carts filthy with winter mud make me feel warm
Movies turn reality into possible imagination
Coffee is bitter
wine droplets struggle to reach ecstasy
The first kiss is the most beautiful, but the last is always the most honest
Death is beautiful, but crying ruins it
Summer is annoying yet full of life
Those details that swirl inside us but we rarely voice are the bravest
Paper without ink is like dragons without wings
A woman whose breasts were torn away by war weeps
Train windows are gateway crossings
Lighthearted suicides are happy
The homeless are the lightest among us
Neatly rolled hashish cigarettes make us smile
All picture frames must be smashed
and all the images set free
The feeling of gratitude might delay our suicides.
Frogs are beautiful
The iguana is a short silent film
The gods don’t dance… they only eat…
The sound of shoes in one last tango resembles a happy heartbeat.
The sacrifice of silence
The recurring images in our memory are boring
We sometimes like to act with the foolishness of children
We break that dull tape with illogical details
Like screaming
stomping our feet on the ground
or loving
I once lost my nose
I wasn’t a she-wolf after that
I roamed the wilderness without a nose
without direction
I once broke my foot
and the hyenas devoured me
Those questions in our brains
are dispelled by the yawns of alleyways
The sun is green
the sky has no doors
nothing separates it from the earth
except the spears of times crucified on cave walls.
What is the farthest distance between two sounds
or rather, what was the last sound between two eras
Einstein’s equations might answer
but the question will remain a question, no matter how long it takes
How, even if we explain the first sounds and the last,
can we see them,
sense the vibrations of their colors
or smell the scent of their echoes in the distance
Is that why Van Gogh cut off his ear
and offered it as a sacrifice of silence to the talkative woman.
Life’s colors tend toward perfect harmony even at their peak of contradiction
and toward total diminishment upon reaching the curve of perfection.
© Ghada Kamal
Dr Salwa Gouda is an accomplished Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic affiliated with the English Language and Literature Department at Ain Shams University. Holding a PhD in English literature and criticism, Dr. Gouda pursued her education at both Ain Shams University and California State University, San Bernardino. She has authored several academic works, including Lectures in English Poetry and Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, among others. Dr. Gouda also played a significant role in translating The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers, a comprehensive project featuring poets, philosophers, historians, and literary figures, conducted under the auspices of UNESCO. Recently, her poetry translations have been featured in a poetry anthology published by Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Her work has also appeared in numerous international literary magazines, further solidifying her contributions to the field of literary translation and criticism.
Ghada Kamal is a multifaceted surrealist visual artist, writer, and poet who plays a central role in advancing the surrealist movement through numerous leadership and editorial positions. She is a co-founder of Sulfur Editions, where she serves as editorial and events director, and is a co-founding member of both the Middle East and North Africa Surrealist Group and the Chrysopoeia Surrealist Union. Kamal also edits the Surrealist Cities section for Room Surrealist Magazine and serves as an editor at Sulfur Surrealist Jungle. Her organizational work includes coordinating performances, workshops, and cinema screenings for major international exhibitions such as the 2022 Cairo Saint-Cirq-Lapopie International Exhibition of Surrealism, the Echoes of Contemporary Surrealism Exhibition (Budapest/Alexandria), Échos Surréalistes Contemporains du Nil à Saint-Cirq-Lapopie (spanning Luxor, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, Budapest, and Alabama), and the Luxor Surrealist Symposium: Interwoven Voices in Cairo