Poetry Reading with Basim Alansar
Conversation 0The Iraqi writer reads four of his poems in the original Arabic. Scroll down this page for an English translation.
The interview with Basim Alansar will be available on a later date.
Interview with Basim Alansar
The Stranger’s Rains
One night, the devil entered my life, and the sun shined. The
clouds that had clustered in my room dispersed, and in their steadthe songs blossomed. What’s more, the curse of discovery shoved its secrets in my face and bequeathed me wind-filled days.
I’m so happy about the night’s sun.
Remember, my soul, that the sun in my sky is old. For when I was a child, the devil flew over my head, and made me cry. And here I am encountering the curse again.
I who have swung between the clamor and the void,
and who hasn’t seen everything yet.
I pleaded unceasingly with my tutors in anxiety to teach me
rebellion and disobedience, and how to wreak havoc in my old
life. I unceasingly tracked a contemplative. When I followed his
instructions, all the volcanoes exploded. The sacred, which had
been my master and savior, evaporated, and I no longer followed
familiar paths.
During my ecstasy with the first destruction, I expelled the
contemplative, who had become an angel, from my kingdom.
I stopped being a feast for tranquility, and I shed morality from my
habits. I won’t surrender to the past again, and I won’t leave time
behind me full of suspicions. I filled my closets with doubts and
forced the questions to open their doors for me. And when
I lay my hand on Life’s Body, the Unknown attacked my heart
viciously. I will go and won’t look back, because the volcanoes of
Anger are waiting for me.
And now!
After I wade through winter blues, carrying spring and summer
in my suitcases, you see me go to the wilderness like Enkidu my
brother in his first days, and you see me face to face with autumn.
As a stranger.
Take off my hands my questions, which supported my strange
excursions, and take the remains of my language, which were
exhausted by the unusual stories.
All I can do is gather my papers and leave. And pray to fate.
You, you who hold perpetuity’s key!
I beg you, stripped as I am of everything but questions and hopes,
to show me your face in your Sufic evenings, to build me a house
in your heart, to make me a tree or a sun or even a dove after my
death, and to make my sight a torch to shine for lovers and the lost
in posterity.
I will leave,
And I will make the heart my balcony overlooking the lake of
silence.
I will leave,
and I will climb the stairs toward the shining,
I will leave for the first centuries,
I,
who saw God inhabiting the rain drops
and who ascended snow-capped mountains
searching for a delayed spring.
I will leave for the sun’s festivities,
and I will wave farewell to the old world.
Breezes
Whenever I move toward life,
The drums of war stop me.
Whenever I grasp the fringes of truth,
The swords of history knife me.
Whenever I embrace freedom’s body,
The tyrants shout in my face.
And whenever I listen to the sounds of exile,
I’m slapped by memories of my mother country.
I have repeatedly declared
That I’m not seeking glory,
Or even trying to be reputable.
All I’ve wished for in my life
Has been to comprehend the breezes that
Blow away the sorrows, implanted in my heart
Since childhood.
Old Age
In the year my country was stained with blood,
I hid my picture in my childhood’s underworld,
Then fled to the new world from the window of superstitions.
Carrying thousands of tons of black flags, I fled.
On arriving, I hid the banners
Inside a despondent woman’s hair
While she hid her years in my body.
I made my heart a country for the exiled,
And I made discovery my magical spectacles.
I filled my sight with sand, in which I could carve my etching
When exile made me feel futile inside.
Europe planted me in the garden of the mind,
While existence planted a flower in my head, whose scent
I dream of.
I am cursed.
I buried the legend in the head of exile
When it put a mine in my mouth.
I covered its head with wars
When exile peacefully ripped my soul apart,
I wounded it with my magical trips
When it wounded me with a yearning for my picture.
And to be present, I disappeared.
And to be immortal, I made inquiry my everlasting coat.
And after thinking that the country was no longer stained
with blood,
I returned
And rushed toward my house
Searching for my picture.
And when I saw the picture,
My heart dropped down the well,
Because my face looked
Afflicted with age.
A Life Surrounded by Trees
Here it is, your time, rolling over the snow-capped mountain,
And here I am, watching you stroll inside the safe times.
Here they are, your desires painted with honey onto the caves,
And here I am, watching you sleep with the old pain.
You first wanted to cry over the past,
And then you wanted to weep about the future.
If you could have, you would have embraced autumn and
eternity together.
You never cared for poets’ wagons,
And the only time you ran was to chase dead stories.
I told you to walk with me toward ephemeral dreams,
But instead you walked alone toward immortal wishes.
And I told you to pack the grass’s green into the suitcases,
But instead you brought the sky’s color into the room.
Remember that you and pleasure are twins.
Remember that the sky doesn’t sleep just when you want it to.
And remember that your life is surrounded by trees.
I hoped you would make war against the taboos,
But you went and chucked such theories over my head.
And I hoped you would remonstrate in the face of immortality,
But instead you wounded my soul with your ancient tunes.
I saw you opening the red gate to enter the insurgency,
After you promised me to enter it through its white gate.
Why did you bid farewell to the coming dawn?
And why did you welcome the dusk?
And after you were away from me for so long,
I knocked on your door so hard
That the knocking left my heart hanging on a nail, bewildered.
And when I saw how the mailman passes
Without turning toward your life,
The trees surrounded me quietly.
Panorama of Surprise
The boys spy on the widows
Through daytime peepholes,
And men lick the palms of fortune-telling women.
Aha!
The soldiers eat their guns,
And the peddlers hang stars
Above their vehicles.
Aha!
The silver woman enters the mirror,
And packs the clouds into suitcases.
Aha!
The devil creates butterflies out of soil
And the serpent coils around the tower
Choking the child in its mouth.
Aha!
I watch the war playing around our houses,
And perceive in it the warriors’ entity and the idea’s blood.
Aha!
I see eternity with the visionary
Through the old tavern’s window.
Aha!
My mother buys several years from the back-alley bakery,
And my siblings embalm their souls with the idea of identity.
Aha!
My father beheads war with a knife,
Before heading toward death himself, unwillingly.
Aha!
I see five flowers on the pavement,
And next to them a bloodstained dagger.
Aha!
I see a child singing a sad song
While exiting a graveyard.
Aha!
After he’s finished singing
The child passes out of my sight—suddenly.
Aha!
The Last Bird
When I broke out into my life
The birds of freedom looked and sounded to me
Like they could never die.
But after having
Spent half my life
Having unparalleled adventures,
My birds of freedom halved in number,
And desire-trees grew in their place.
And each time I utilized desire
In my new adventures
I lost a single bird of freedom
Although I always took care
That I would reach the end of my life
Walking among trees of desire—
And carrying in my hands the final bird of freedom.
Translated from the Arabic by Henry Holland and Hazem Shekho
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