SUMMER SONNETS

 

 

 

1

The scent of summer carries me

to cities sleeping in my heart

and shores lying in my soul,

and memory transports me

to regions

and lofty castles

glittering

in the language of dreams.

 

2

There are no roses in summer,

my friend,

but the girl I loved

hid two roses

on her lips,

and while her friends were unaware

she hid two roses in the glass and said:

Summer will flood them with warmth

and they will refresh its panting breath.

 

2

It is midnight and yet

on the balcony there still remains

something of the day’s sun that has not set,

it is climbing

the wall like ivy,

leaving on our windows

traces of a robe the sun has woven

on an unknown shore.

 

4

I don’t like writing in the summer –

the insidious fine dust of the daytime overwhelms me,

at noon drowsiness overtakes me

and at night I am seized by the blueness of the clouds

that are infatuated by its marble.

But, I like a book to sleep with me

and myself to sleep on its breast,

at one time it shares silence with me

and at another I share a game with it,

and renew the pleasures of a bloody age

chock-full of transgression

 

5

The hour is midnight

and the neighbourhood’s children

roam the streets

light, half-naked

playing,

singing,

with his fingers a child plays

a song of hoarse words

on a wet flute

 

6

And in the summer

my heart goes to the sea,

takes off its clothes

and the remains of old songs

It loves mirrors

and dreams there’s a new time there

behind the blue clouds

and a distant green fire

is searching in the water for poets

and dreamers.

 

7

Beyond the sea

I see another sea

and behind the waves

I see lofty palaces

and wax men

and sapphire women

I see white horses

and a sun and stars

shining

at midnight

 

8

In summer birds

go late to sleep

and rise late after daybreak,

but in the evenings

they stay long,

singing,

playing with the last shadow

on the horizon,

with the last light

on the jasmine trees

 

9

How much firewood does the summer need

to become hot?

And the earth

to become warm

after a bitterly cold winter?

How much time does a poet need

and how many books and trees must he read

to encounter by coincidence

the colour of his first poem?

 

10

The road to the sea is green,

the sea is green

and the water, like the garden wall,

is green

How can I show the poem the way

when it comes to see me without appointment?

And how can I show the letters the way

when they’ve ruffled their feathers

and concealed my place?

 

11

The sea is the sea

and there’s nothing in the summer but sorrows!

Do you remember how many seas you tried to plough,

on how many summers you shut your heart

on the shells of its transgression?

I hear the clanking of shores inviting you

to a wedding ceremony

between the salt and the sand

and the water!

 

12

In Alexandria,

once upon a beautiful time,

I stood at the edge of summer

looking from the sea’s balcony

at the face of sunset,

adorned by minarets and people,

like fantasies of painted tableaux

and a luxuriance of stormy wonders

crowded the infinite end of the horizon.

 

 

 

 

CLOUDS

 

1

Have you ever seen green clouds

descending

ascending

over silver-coloured mountains?

These green clouds

make off with the clothes of the sea

and spread open the banners of obscure joy

over the walls of the heart

and around the shores of words

 

2

They are winter clouds

emerging from the sun’s flanks,

and playing between its loving hands

like a crawling baby,

toying with the water of its rays

Where have they come from

and how have they identified themselves

with the blue of a sea

whose waves are intoxicated

and with the clarity of a sky

in love with warmth?

 

3

Clouds with the colour of Sana’a

flutter over the balconies of my soul

and wash from the window of my heart

the grime clinging to the bricks

and stones

and to the face of our white city.

Greetings to you, clouds of the sea,

bringing rain from the sun

and the sweet fragrance of a fresh song

with a dreamy rhythm.

 

4

They are clouds of rain

that have no water,

they diffuse beauty in the horizon

for which the grass yearns

for which many a child yearns

for which the sun yearns

for which poetry yearns

for which music yearns

and the day’s birds too

with outstanding musical performance

and wonderful tunes

 

5

One day

I put my hand out of the morning’s window

hoping to catch the rhythms of the fleeing clouds

scattered above the rooftops,

flooded by a soft sun

and the downpour of bird song,

coming from a time moist with warmth

and tattooed with the shadows of birds,

swimming in a sea of light

and running in the valleys of dreams.

 

6

Clouds are gathering

dispersing

drawing trees

            and stars

                        and gardens

They drink the drops dripping from their fingers

and shade over the forests of markets, busy with people,

and the forests of words that are haunted by fountains

of pure water

and ideas the colour of the soul’s heavens.

 

7

Clouds are going out for a stroll,

away from the thirst of the earth

and from the depths of chasms and canyons,

surrounded by the butterflies of the valleys

and the flutes of the fields of coffee beans.

Where will they go?

Now they are ascending the summit of Ghayman

sauntering through the streets of Sana’a

and running wherever they like

carrying on their shoulders,

fascinating drawings

of rustic homes and fields.

 

 

 

ANNOYANCE

 

1

Sorry, my lady

the tavern is closed

or rather there is no tavern in this part

of the religiously believing East

and I am a man who drinks not wine

but anxiety.

My friend here is looking for water

to perform his ritual ablutions

before attending prayers for the dead.

Is there water available?

 

2

O policeman,

I know that you are illiterate by nature

and by schooling

and that you offer legal opinions

about forbidden things

You try to learn from what happened

in people’s past

but you learn nothing

about what is coming

Why don’t you fold your whip away

and sleep on kat leaves?

 

3

O, my child, who mocks both rationality

and irrationality,

the poverty the poor have gathered

and the wealth the rich have gathered,

reduce the anguish of your sorrows

and listen to the ticking of the present scene

I don’t know the meaning of lamps

that give no light

and of a window through which

a murderer’s face cannot be seen

 

4

The poet fell into the well of words

The well had neither water nor shadow

and its roses of meaning were wilting

and ailing from the lean time

What do you hope for, O poet,

inhabited by moans

and steeped in the vinegar of sorrows?

 

5

Sleep, O heroes of the present scene,

Sleep.

Baghdad is dying

Jerusalem at your hands has long since died

and the executioners are extending their hunting nets

to other cities

and to the lands flooded with oil

I beg you: Sleep

 

6

I don’t recognize this large grave

Is this my homeland?

The homeland of dead Arab bedouins,

the homeland of poetry seeking rhymes,

with the relics of coffins

that drowned in sand, resembling me

and not resembling me?

 

7

The lover sat moaning in the mosque,

And its people were heedless

as the river of his passion overflowed.

He prayed ten times,

                        twenty times.

He cried till the mosque was wet,

and his eyes continued to flow with tears.

 

 

 

Selected from new poems,

not yet in a collection

pp134-143, Banipal 36 – Literature in Yemen Today (Autumn/Winter 2009)

 

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