Walid Hermiz

 

Four Poems

 

Translated by Raphael Cohen

 

 

 

I AM THE BLIND, I AM THE HYMNS OF ABSENCE

 

I am the blind

I transcribe the confessions of hymns,

then I go my way.

I transcribe the commandments of my grandfather, Hermes the Chaldean,

then I go my way.

 

I am the blind,

my ink is quintessential bitterness and white is my agony.

White, the colour of absence, colour of wisdom,

is the closest colour to the body.

 

I am the blind,

I carry melancholy like a violin,

my feverish fingers strum

the tremolo of grief.

 

I am the blind, and my guide –

the cane of Borges, grandson of the colonel.

His commandments lacerate:

“Soar afar, my son, with your Images of beloveds. Stare afar into the maze of mirrors.”

 

I am the blind.

My guide – the love poems of Ovid and the lighthouses of his exile in Tomis.

I raise my palms to you, Ovid, and make a lover’s confession. Guide me.

“Behold your beloved.”

“Behold her, a thyrsus of myrtle in hand, advancing confidently,

singing a pleasure sonata.”

 

I am the blind,

my guide – the groans of the beauty of Ur,

priestess of desired women.

Enheduanna:

divine mistress of lament and the virility of incense.

The pain of her hymns was

the ark that took me to the steep cliff of exile.

She taught me the meaning of departing and said:

From now on, please do not bolt the door.

 

I am the blind,

my guide – the sin of John the Baptist: Yahya Youhana

and the audacity of Salomé, who tightened the linen scarf around her hips and swayed.

The light of jealousy flowed, astray, over the roof tiles of Machaerus Palace.

The maidens of Madaba (the juice of fruit) trembled.

The temples of Dibon shook and the rocks of Ma‘in.

Salomé writhed in her lewd dance

stamped the ground with her heels

read blindness in Herod’s eye

a man touched by tyranny

dripping lust.

And at her every half-naked pirouette,

the silver platter defied death

like the floor mosaic

inlaid with the homilies of nuns.

 

I am the blind,

my guide – the mirage of lamps

a mirage washing the body of Sappho matured with tavern wine.

Her lust

is a testimony against her.

Her moans, her dance,

her pure song

is a testimony against her.

Her intercessor Hermes

is a testimony against her.

She with her bees and honey

is testimony to my blind desire.

 

I am the unchained blind,

my guide – Gunnar Ekelöf^*. I hurry behind him in the Underworld

and he shouts at me:

“Where are you from?”

“From Ur of the Sumerians.”

“Do you carry the immortality herb of Gilgamesh?”

“I am fleeing from it.”

“Do not follow me, then.”

 

“Son of Ur, what brings you here?”

“I seek a peaceful kingdom.

I seek being afar

wrapped in burning coals.

Perchance I reach the groaning of my silence.”

“You will listen to silence.”

“I hear the echo of my father

in the depths of the well.”

“The well is very far.”

“I seek my mother’s shawl

shrouding her in the grave.”

“Sumerian,

you will keep digging

in Scandinavian skies,

no sun will shine for you

no matter how long the day.

You will mellow here

as our graves are the best we have

and Satan (burning in his cloak).”

 

I am the blind,

my warner is here, the man of Iron.

He gets me closer to the windward,

my mute guide,

gets me closer to semiotic perfection.

The transcriber of the covenants of insomnia

the insomnia of Dylana and Diram

on the bedrock of the soul.

 

I call out: “Dyyylaaanaaa.

Guide me,

I flaunt you to the confidant of the ibex.

My princess is your double,

she knows what injures her.

Who gathers the light-headedness of frivolity?

 

I call upon the diviner of The Cranes,

Diiirrraaammm.

Guide me,

I flaunt you to your bold impudence:

“Don’t remain a mountain goat on the plateau.”

Such is the mood of autumn.

The ripest desire is in autumn.

The beautiful song is of the flash of almond blossom.

Come closer, come closer

Move a little away and come closer

in the vastness of your noble virility

Twenty flashes under your heart.

Be worthy of her valour.

Do not back off.

 

I am the wounded blind,

regret is not my companion.

The roar of your pulse leads me

crowned with the wind

crowned with the unseen

with vows of forgiveness.

 

With all my blindness

I insist on

a scorch from your light.

I insist on

reaching the snows of your citadel

so I might pray two prostrations of desire

between your breasts.

 

I insist

on kissing your cross

moist with the sweat of your breasts.

 

I insist on

inscribing

the delirium of my soul

on the clay of your breasts.

 

I insist

at the end of the panegyric

on sleeping

between your breasts.

Your two small breasts

the banks of my vows.

Do not wake me up

do not wake me up.

 

I am the blind, the pendulum of my mind

is my fantasy.

Compliant with your water landing.

My blue sparkle I gin out

from the cotton of your pain,

to be my final bed.

 

 

* Gunnar Ekelöf (1907-1968) was a Swedish poet, considered one of the country’s greatest lyric poets and described as the most important poet of modern Swedish literature.

 

 

 

 

GRACEFULLY COME TO THE ALTAR OF CONFESSION

 

Gracefully, with the chalice of ancient wine

in your right hand,

come closer, my beloved.

 

Gracefully, with your left hand

set the candle at my waist aflame, my beloved.

 

The waist I proffer as a violin

waiting for the passage of your bow.

 

With my milk inscribe on your shoulders

the spell of Hermes the Sumerian.

 

Gracefully, come

delightfully, come

and with your flame set ablaze

the oil of my two chestnut areolas, my beloved.

 

Gracefully, come

to the altar of confession

in my body, my beloved.

 

Gracefully, abandon modesty

cushion me with the trumpet of your kisses, my beloved.

 

…

 

Be graceful like the dawn woodpecker of Jadra valley

like the thousand tiers of Gerasa.

Like the roof tiles of Arnon

Solid is your love, let it be.

 

In the blue labyrinth,

of the citadel moons

my voice will come to you tremulous like a swing.

Why do I tremble

whenever, at dawn, my lamp

yawns asleep after a night of insomnia,

whenever my enamoured eyes

surrender to the rays of the blue dawn?

 

Blue is rose of fire,

romance of evening in its splendour,

companion of dusk,

colour of my reliable sign.

Blessed in her conception, the Virgin chose it as her colour.

Turn between her green olive trees,

there he is, ripe as my eyelashes.

 

In the damp parade grounds, turn around,

in its seven halls, turn around,

warm yourself at its giant oven

whose fire never dies.

Read the commandments set down by Roman knights in florid Latin:

“Ask the gods to give you wealth, wisdom, and beauty, but beware of vanity.”

My prince, how much did I entice you with the pear of the plain?

My forest, red flint.

Chestnuts do not grow in my father’s garden.

Olive trees, warner of those forgotten,

Alas, gusts of autumn.

 

Figs – figs of suspicion,

a burning passion

Alas . . . a summer reverberation of roosters.

 

I coax you, heedlessly, with sweet praise,

hymn of sin and repentance.

I kneel on the prayer niche of your chest,

anoint me with the oil of your love,

I anoint you with the oil of my grace.

 

Softly I recite the act of love:

My diviner who flushed the yeast of my soul

with his roiling desire.

May your bread be holy.

Give me the hymn of repentance,

you, the newborn who blesses me

and blesses

the insomnia of the exiled,

the misery of April,

the trembling of the throats of the springs, the springs of the female stranger.

 

Like me, you are a stranger

Like me, you will raise a toast

to the wellsprings of kisses.

Our kisses delight in the lush of carnations blessed with rosewater.

My fate,

companion of your vows, a thin gasp, thirty diversions later or thereabouts.

The flash of my vows decorated with the groan of copper lilies.

The brilliance of my light-headedness is the plunder of the grass

the plunder of the thirsty for the call of your fingertips

as you slip away, taking shelter in the hills of my back tattooed with acid.

 

 

 

SEVEN KISSES LONGING FOR BAPTISM

 

Hermes, my teacher,

my guide and hers,

my guardian and hers.

In front of her well I built my temple.

I examine the tilt of the stern,

flushed by the waters of her mirrors.

Show me the bitter passage.

She roams my threshing floor,

her locks made of startled ears of wheat.

Is my sickle worthy of the vigour of gold?

 

To the Chaldean prophetess you go,

you bow to her.

Seven kisses in your mouth,

you are yearning to confess

yearning for baptism.

Bitter musk in your mouth,

honeycomb in hers.

In her body, seven thirsty threshing floors.

Test her with the madness of carnations,

with your pure oil cleanse her psalms

on her succulent body.

If she is baptised in your kisses, she will follow you.

In her misery she follows you

and if she goes far off

with her breath she follows you

east

even west,

like the sunflower she follows you.

 

She dusts herself with the wheat of your dread and follows you.

Distracted by her patrician fate, she follows you.

Head spinning at the clamour of those around her, she follows you,

She treads the twists of your blind wanderings

in order to follow you.

You pour her the bitter draught of your folly, yet she follows you.

Because you are the diviner of her desire.

The spectre of your ecstasy is her covenant,

the covenant of the vows of the fugitive exiled.

 

With seven kisses from the rain of your heart, baptise her.

A first kiss on her brow

with sesame oil anoint her braids

bless her eyelashes.

 

A second kiss on her mouth

with acorn oil anoint her cheeks

bless her eyes.

 

A third kiss on her breasts

with citronella oil anoint her shoulders

bless her nipples.

 

A fourth kiss on her nipples

with ambergris oil anoint her ribs

bless her belly.

 

A fifth kiss on her waist

with raw-silk oil anoint her hips

bless her navel.

 

A sixth kiss on her navel

with nettle oil, caress the fronds of her wen

bless her pelvis for her.

 

A seventh kiss on her vulva

with oil of balsam anoint her thighs,

press your thumb on the rosy waistband of dawn.

Bless the sweetness of the bud.

 

Do not desire her. Prepare her for the flood of dreams.

Do not desire her. Your beloved is judicious.

Do not touch her, mystical is your love for her.

Do not name her. I carved her name on an emerald tablet.

Your spear sleeps weaned in her virginal light.

Guard your seven seals,

vows of lovers.

 

Rest.

It is time, my son, for you to rest

after the temples of nudity have been baptised with the milk of your virility.

Rest and press your ear to her shells

to hear the hissing sounds of the seas you have crossed.

Be the One sent to the wilderness of female lovers

guide them to the sources of the springs.

In your exile chant the sura of Chaldean revelation:

“I have given you what you lack,

a blessing you will never attain.”

 

 

 

DITTY, SEVENTH HYMN

 

Hermes, father of my father

son of your father.

Bearer of the ewer of cassis.

Baptise me with the wine of your disciples.

I will raise the goblets to you

I drink what your soul desires.

Pray the blessing for my beloved.

– Blessed be the one who matures the sweet taste of vineyards,

– Blessed is the princess of princesses,

– Blessed,

– Blessed,

– Blessed,

 

 

 

Selected and translated from Walid Hermiz’s poetry collection

Bells of the Chaldeans

for Banipal 75

Back to Selections