Inside a black hole

We carry upon our shoulders
a sky heavier than a granite rock
as the last of pin-point planets
glitter over our heads.

The hand of the master
is always raised with a whip.

The heron howls in the tunnel of forgiveness
and we all listen, humbled,
to the flapping of wings
in the music hall.

It doesn't matter
if we have the right or not
for I know in the end I'll meet
my ancestors, turned young
like me.

At least I hope to sit
in a candle-lit bar
and talk about the more mind-blowing miracles
like Jona sitting forgotten in the belly of the whale
making his way
to all those distant seas
guided by gamma rays.

The Tropic of Cancer is between us
and our departure, for sure.

When we finally arrived at the summit
we found our lives behind us
as guiding lights
along the way.

Carrying our credentials in our hands
we crossed Anno's old passage,
turning its Black Hole round,
and hurled the rock
into the abyss
once more.
 
 

When the sky still had no name

When the sky still had no name
when the earth still had not been born
and when I was a child like all the others,
clenching the hem of my dusty dishdasha between my teeth
and running after lost butterflies in the streets,
I saw Tiamat carrying her murderous beasts
through the thunderstorm:
the seven-headed serpent
the great lion, the foaming-in-the-mouth wolf,
the scorpion man
the ox fish and the stone dragon.
I remember my father in his oil-stained blue overalls
taking me with him
to the blazing fire in Babagurgur.
There I smelt Eternity
free-flowing through white pipelines
from Ur to H3
from Chokur Alley to Weissenseer Weg in Berlin,
through its famous wall.
At holiday-time we often went to fancy-dress parties
where bears imitated old Turkoman women
coming back from the vegetable market,
or we'd visit the poorhouses for retired holy men
to hear the magicians tell of the mad god Merdoch
who slashed at Tiamat
with his razor sword
and cut her in two
making from her the earth and the sky,
and from the blood of her husband
whose head he severed with an axe
he created the human race.

Sitting on my high bench
I surveyed the scene,
the whole of mankind parading in front of me:
I saw Noah rowing in his ship towards land
and al-Mutanabbi reciting his poems
to the winds in the desert,
blind Homer guiding Odysseus to Ithaca,
Garibaldi's artillery firing on the clouds,
Napoleon on his horse galloping
from hell to Corsica
and the Macedonian, Alexander the Great,
leading his troops along the Silk Road
returning to holy Babel.
I saw the traitor, Judas, and his fellow  disciples
expound their teachings
through hired loudspeakers at carnivals and feasts,
I saw Rimbaud offering his favourite slave girl to me
in the vanished Garden of Eden
and I saw on the shores of Buwaib,
by hungry Jaikur,
al-Sayyab waiting
to hand over his poet's papers
so I could intercede for him on Judgement Day.

So many people passed by and disappeared
while others drowned in the Flood,
so many people, but I never heard
the grinding of their teeth
on those very chilly nights.

And still the sky had no name.
 
 

A statue in a square

I dream I am a statue
In a square that carries my name,
So I try to look like a general at war
collecting the burden of his victims
as flowers for his funeral,
and I speak at night about oblivion 
to justify the confidence of mankind in me.
I think it would be better
to raise my hat and praise
the sun shining down on earth
and let my statue step from its plinth
to join a battalion of angels
returning from exile
with a cage of dead nightingales
that they once hunted 
in the desert of my life.

When I released them
they flew over the heads of passers-by,
leaving for me
The memory of their songs.
 

Here is the twentieth century 
in its long dim hall
with murderers and conjurers 
sitting at its table
in the flickering candlelight
of their victory
waiting for their meal.
The waiters come out
one by one
from their hidden corners
balancing dishes of darkness
on their heads
to serve their guests.

They will all drink from the same bottle
watch the evening fall among the trees.
Parades of drunken soldiers 
wave their bloody flags 
and march down the street.

Through the window
the moon will soon shine.

When they finish their feast
we will sit at that same table 
and drink the same wine 
too.
 
 

Events

Something always happens: 
a war can be declared suddenly
a baby born in a cave 
a lonely heart broken.

Shall I forget all that?

Something always flows: 
water in a river
wine in a tavern 
tears and blood too.

Can I stop all that?

Something we always miss:
a sentence we learned by heart 
an umbrella forgotten in a bar 
a woman with whom we fell 
passionately in love. 

Can I be happy about all of that?

And if nothing happens ?
if I do not win a million pounds in the lottery
or find a treasure in my garden
or I do not take a trip to the moon,
for example.

should I not be sad then because of that?