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| Abdel latif |
The Metamorphosis of Dreams
I gather the faces of people,
in the treasure of folly,
engraving upon my poor dress
a song, a silent prayer.
I add colors to creation,
to weave a metamorphosis,
one after another,
echoing the depths of happiness.
I am your dream,
O people of reason,
a condition veiled in wonder,
eyes gazing towards tomorrow.
The streets are empty,
hearts outstretched,
trodden by the weight
of silent doubt.
I adapt to grandeur,
inhabiting an incapacity,
visible to all,
my nakedness, my fragility.
My feet are nailed
to the pavement's face,
showcases of sorrow,
where hope feels faint.
Sometimes it sighs,
and sometimes it softens,
your dream, O people of words,
is sweeter, but often forgotten.
For I am the one who wanders,
or do people wander with me?
A dervish in a circle,
lost in a memory.
I emerge, my soul pours forth,
between its lines, the strings
of longing for the sanctuary's robe,
and the blessings that true love brings.
They slept upon the shoulders of time,
testimony of interwoven moments,
signs of exchange,
a miracle yet to be found.
***
A Martyr
Sign me up, right here,
To a womb that defies history's commute.
Inscribe my name.
Never did I nurse from the breasts of women in a slave market.
I could not trust mystics,
Nor did their bells ring recognition in my heart.
A million fears
My fears, multiplied a millionfold,
When I find death staring into my life,
When I see coffins stacked,
Black as the tears of rain.
May God grant you a long life,
To console homes filled with sorrow—
The bodies of the martyrs,
Whose lives gifted you freedom.
Beside the widows and orphans,
Gallows craft your dreams,
Selling your heart on the very first road.
Be a martyr.
***
A frame to image painful
Sorrows planted deep inside hearts,
Awakening seeds of fear,
With horror facts concealed and capped.
Dressed in the wear of silence,
The sorrows of the day were sown—
A sign upon a grave, a dub
To the slow death of man, unknown.
Silence is no picture of them,
Without a paint, it's stark and grim.
Accepted: you die anonymous,
Though in your truth, you live a dream.
Though your heart in desert carries home,
Though your age was right for your own land,
Accepted: you die anonymous,
Like Zia's glory, a vanishing strand.
When such a spirit's light extinguishes,
And disappears, a beautiful dream ends,
Accepted: you die anonymous.
Too, houses died, their doors against walls bend.
Her streets, they mourned; the night came, withered,
Leaving a body, chronically loved,
A shiny star, whose songs no longer tethered
To the moon, now silently removed.
Rumored, the last beats from your heart,
You felt and then announced absence.
Faces passed like dreams, printed apart
On the plate-blooded board of lost essence.
Regrets the eye which saw of leaving
At mystery. It was not inspiring—
A frame to image aching, ever grieving.
Probability
Here's an English translation of the poem, aiming to retain its context and poetic essence:
The wheat stalks breathe you in,
Braid your letters for the evenings.
And stir your songs the day they met
Upon his face, the silence... the flock of stillness.
Depart to where we began our journey,
Indeed, the streams hold but fragments.
To a time squandered,
Forgive my death when I choose you,
To the mercy of the devout, in protest,
To the dwelling of the wound,
The distance of desolation.
And your endurance was to borrow
From the star, the day of collapse's rituals.
Within you, the debasement of poems eludes,
Towards the sunrise.
And you quiet above some plains
The languages of apprehension,
In your sailing times.
You soothe the blaze of solitude... cities,
And pour into the eye the tears of reunion,
Branches from the beginning we were,
For the land of severance.
We carry to it the beseeching letters,
To write in love,
The beloved's spinning song.
And you still swear by the earthquake,
So as to prepare a new homeland,
Which the questions lost in their lament,
And the impossible bolted its gates
With bursts of time that began to depart.
You never left the harvests of remembrance,
That we were quenching.
With your silence, visions will not overflow
The boundaries of emptiness.
And we...
Are in vain.
The child residing deep inside me
The child residing deep inside me,
When fear ignites, blazes with delight,
Shattering every frame,
Out into the street, he openly proclaims
His right to taste a morsel of truth.
With utter innocence, he'd plead with the sun's rays,
As they arrived to confiscate tomorrow's darkness.
He never knew that the morrow,
Lying slain on the heart's threshold,
Was already sacrificed.
The child residing deep inside me,
Quietly gathers fragments from the shadow
Of the girl fallen from the window of desire.
He passes from beneath the navel,
To the furthest lip at the edge of the house,
Retreating to the corner, at the furthest bank,
And in the dark rooms, he rattles
Matchboxes.
The child residing deep inside me,
Has but one hand,
With it, he gathers the world before him,
Drawing it in clusters.
And within his notebook of dreams,
He scribbles, then redraws.
The child residing deep inside me,
Is inherently stubborn.
He demolishes every dream in an instant,
The moment he awakens
To a new dawn,
