Bells will not toll tonight

The storm in front of my door
will not subside tonight.
Its Herculean armies have slammed shut the doors.

In the church's fading light
I glance at monks pulling handcarts,
fleeing to the mountains
on horses that stretch and strain in the wind
as if from the Byzantine age.

On this memorial night,
bells will not toll,
the storm will never subside.
 

Music

When I go out,
I leave the music on
to guard the souls of the dead,
music of the ancients that carries
the smell of grass,
and guards the gardens of Babylon
hanging in the depths.

When I go out,
I leave everything closed in on itself
except for the music throbbing in the empty lounges
and some oysters,
which I picked from the shore
on the night of the storm.
 

From my room to the café

In the morning when I wake up,
the world wakes in my head
with creatures and screams smashing my bones.

I leave my room --
it's like a cave filled with the slain --
and shuffle off to the café.
I look intently at my cup -- it's like a snake
relaxing on a summer afternoon --
and think: "This is my last cup in this city!"

But morning is still at its outset,
and I'll have to go through wars and kisses
and will only discover their flavour
after centuries.
 
 

Arrival

When I travel to a country,
rumours precede me there,
and I am aroused
like a wolf whose fantasies anticipate
its prey,
and I never arrive.
 

Steps

I walk, I feel under my feet
a sky, trembling with all its victims,
and on my head, an earth
that has stopped rotating.

I hear a thunder of steps behind me,
steps of people coming
from the past,
silent as if they are dead.
Past, retreat a while,
let me finish today's walk.
 

Our old house

It's as if I'm walking
through valleys, filled with fear,
valleys I can neither touch
nor easily recall.
As if I'm taking that first step there,
I walk into our old house, and find emaciated horses,
the ghosts of our ancestors
wander amongst their neighings.

The door opens onto this desert of absence
a smell of grilled fish,
a smell of gas, 
wafting from the disused stove.

The jars as they were, speaking to the corners,
and water still boiling in the pots.
The sheep have come back from the fields
except for the one a wolf ate.
Saddles and guns hang on the walls
as if at a funeral gathering.
Tomorrow is Eid al-Adha*,
but the children have forgotten to buy new shoes,
or wash their feet before they slept.

White clouds wrap the neighbouring sky,
and accompany travellers to their distant villages.
And we are swimming in the festival rain,
where birds gently peck the air,
to wake it, with us, on the roofs,
where we dried our dates and dreams
on the clayey balconies
and fell between the feet of an agitated bull,
where the stains of an enervated sun
seize the house, with its birds and women
and ancient trees stumbling like
shepherds among ruins.

Beyond the fence
you can still see the palm trees,
like bewildered spirits colliding with minarets,
like ships lowering their sails
in misty seas,
and amid their somnolence and green dreams
lurks the evening's next soirée.

 * the Sacrifice Festival