By Nizar Kabbani
Translated by Mohja Kahf
Grant Me Love That I May Bloom and Green*i.
Listen, my lady,
Listen to me well,
for I am in a passionate fit
and it may not repeat itself
A mystical state! a poetic fit!
splendid in its grief
--for I am scented always
by my grief
Hold me close, my lady,
for I am in a state of tipsiness
My arteries are draining,
my bones disintegrating
Quick! Wash your hair
in the river of my craziness--
the craziness of love
that can never be explained
Read me, my lady
Read me well
for I am in search
of a moonstruck reader
who will slip my poetry
on her wrists like bracelets
and see the world
take the shape of a poet
Be drunk, my lady
Be drunk on me
Be drunk until the sea turns rose-red,
turns winedark,
turns grey,
turns yellow
How beautiful it is
for a woman to lose her balance
in the presence of poetry
and become drunk
I am in the most beautiful
of my tempers
I am in the most radiant
of my moments of civilization
Oh, I do love when I get civilized!
Give me another chance to write history,
my lady, for history
does not repeat itself
I changed history with love
just as I changed the history of womanhood
What is poetry if it does not change things?
What is a poet if he does not change?
With every new story of love
added to my country's story trove,
the rose overswells with fragrance
and the midsummer moon overspills with milk
For fifty years
I have been leaping
from landmine to landmine,
calling my people to change
No, I have not blasted the wall of ugliness
as I had imagined:
I'm the one who's been blown up
by my own explosives
In fifty years,
I have yet to see a doe
flee from her hunter,
yet to know a woman
who wanted to be liberated
ii.
You who springs into my memory
from the whiteness of jasmine,
from the waterspouts of Granada,
from the tears of the mandolin,
my lady, what can we possibly do?
The piano is drowning in its notes
All the cupboards are locked
The wine of the sea is red
I have no definition for desire
One day it is a rose on my lapel--
the next it is a dagger on my bed
One day it is an ember burning my hand--
the next it is sugarcane in my mouth
What astonishes me
is that whenever I go out to meet you,
the color of time is leaf-green
When we look at our watches,
they are flowers
The grounds of our coffee
turn up green like sprigs
The passion in our irises
when we gaze at each other
gleams spring-green
What is happening in my story
and your story, my lady?
Whenever I think I have covered
your hair with my kisses,
your hair just grows longer
iii.
What amazes me
is this feeling every morning
that whatever I look upon turns to poetry
Whatever I touch turns to poetry!
My little things
and your little things
turn to poetry
The coffeepot,
in a fit of desire,
becomes poetry
The lyric books we love together,
the way the bathrobe hugs you,
the graze of water tracing the small of the back
to the rhythm of Chopin's Variations
and Mozart's Overtures
The taste of the first kiss before breakfast,
the sink of your alabaster foot into the carpet,
the touch of the brush on your hair,
the slide of eyeliner through the corners of your eyes--
what is left?
What is left of the universe
that has not become music and poetry?
These are pages from history, my lady,
blowing through our lives
and history never repeats itself
Never!
What's come over me these days, my lady,
that everything I read blooms
and everything I write buds?
My language uncurls like a vine
My nouns are apple blossoms
My verbs are blackberry brambles
My vowels are clustered wildflowers
My consonants grow by the side of the road
My cadence is grass-green, moss-green, fern-green
My stanzas sprout and thicken in the loam
What mixes up the colors in our eyes?
If we speak on the phone,
our voices deepen into summer green
If we recline on the sofa,
the wheat that pours
from your armpits
is a harvest golden-green
If we slump on the curb of grief,
we find even grief evergreen
If we stop at a cafe,
the waiter and all
who step into the radius
of your perfume
turn into tropical greenery
iv.
Lady of waters, you
who takes me to the springs
and brings me stars for gifts,
and vineyards and pine-nuts,
I thank you
a thousand times
for your generosity
I had been living in a wasteland
for so long
and now, by the grace of love,
I bloom and green
* First published in Grand Street, #68, pp. 106-111, 1999.
Bread, Bongs, and the Moon
At moonrise,
in the East,
white rooftops doze
under blossom sprays,
and people rouse
themselves from tombs
and go in droves
to meet the moon
They load up loaves
of bread,
and balladeers, and bongs,
take to the mountaintops,
and buy and sell
chimeras,
fantasies,
and songs
and die to all else
when the moon is born
What is it with this white disk?
What does it do
to my native land,
land of saints and simpletons
land of tobacco chewers
and dope dealers?
What is it that it does
to us, the moon?
That we lose
our self-esteem
and live to beg
from the sky?
What’s the sky got
for laggards
and louts
who slacken
and swoon,
nigh to corpses,
when they spy
the moon?
Wretches who rattle
the graves of the saints
expecting the gravestones,
perhaps,
to yield them
children and crops
Idlers spreading soft
and dainty rugs
Stoned on a drug
we call the belief
in Divine Destiny,
the notion that
Providence Provides
--in my native land,
the land of buffoons
What feebleness
and crapulence
takes hold of us
when the moon is lit
How the hills
spill over
with baskets and blankets
and teapots and tots
in my native land
Where nitwits snivel and sigh
and live on false light
In this land of mine
Where people do without eyes
Where halfwits pule and prate
and pray and fornicate
all their parasitic lives
Rowdies who yell “Howdy!”
at the gibbous,
calling, “Give us
your clusters of diamonds, moon!
Rain opium on us, orb
We’re tripping on the torpor
you’re dripping, you dangling
marble Lord
Stay ours,
you unbelievable phenom,
for us millions
stupefied
out of our senses
Baby, be our diamond gourd.”
In the Eastern evenings
when the moon is round,
the East strips
itself naked
of grit and pride
The masses turn into lolling flesh
those who run shoeless,
who live deprived,
who believe in Resurrection
and having four wives
Those who’ve only seen
bread in their dreams,
who dwell at night
in houses of cough and the house of wheeze
and who can never afford
the doctor’s fees
This is what happens
in my native land,
where all the fools
know how to do
is to cry
and to die crying fools:
All it takes
is the face
of the moon
to make them cry anew
All it takes is a lowly lute,
the folksiest yodel,
our form of the blues
--that slow death
we in the East
call a croon
In my native land,
land of loons,
where we chaw on long folktunes
--that cancer that kills the East,
this East chewed to tatters
by its pathetic history,
its lazy reveries,
its futile fantasies
This is our East,
forever in search of
its heroes of yore,
its moon-stabbed heroes
of our loopy lore,
endlessly spilling
moon-gut and moon-gore
Don’t gasp and gapeMy Abortion
And suddenly it’s,
“Throw the bitch out!”
and “Get rid of it now!”
Suddenly all you can do
is shout
I see. I suppose
I have always known
that you were low
You had your doorman
block my way
So. You had your fun
another day—you know,
when you threw
my heart away?
The mess
is left for me to clean
You tell your valet
to say,
“The Master is out”
Like hell he’s out
Coward—and to think
I came to tell you
—to bother to say—
that I am pregnant
today
So you’d spit
me out into the street
--now, when nausea
coils around my throat
When your ill-omened heir
lies in my loins
and shame
will soil
me alone
and all that I dread
is taking shape
because I am pregnant.
Here I came
to let you know—
Your fifty dollars
make me laugh
What for?
To abort? To bleed
on a dirty floor?
Fifty bucks?
All along
you were thinking
of me as a whore?
And that’s your price
on my good faith
You are putrid
Thank you.
I fling them
in your face
I’ll abort this fetus
by myself
Your fifty dollars
make me sick
and I wouldn’t
give a child
for a father
such a lowdown prick
<Nizar Kabbani's Bio> <Mohja Kahf's Bio>
Programs
in Creative Writing and Translation ■ Department of English ■