Traitor: This blind bull is
Kicked he the earth
And, with his imagination's horn,
Stabbed space,
Leaving behind his wrestlers panting into their sleep,
Beyond stars' dripping blood, he promises
Their lukewarm weapons with untraceable battles
A traitor: This drop is,
Happily unto the ocean's resounding digging grave,
Thus, within her heart, belittling clouds' worth
Tomorrow your death will be an idol under which
Feet you shall worship while your precious treasures panting
Under his filthily dirty coward fingers. Tomorrow- you scoundrel-
Creepers shall mutate, looking out from several burrows within you:
Burrows extending from your touches, from your looks, burrows
Bursting with hissing you wish not to hear- that hissing forming steps With the lust of blind little preys which, in bright attires, are tempted into it.
I lead you on to easy death:
The death that's paved at the fore of mysterious queens.
I am not in a hurry of my age;
My age's end is showing fear's muscles up to God
And thus uselessly rest
On porches born out of your look at the enchanting gauze
I sat- perhaps for minor years-
I sat- perhaps for diaries the puzzlement's papers of which
Are torn when intimidated by people's wind.
Your elusiveness was the heat of porches beneath me
And the wails' engraving unto the air that encompasses me
You are soaring plains
On which battles of hunting and preying are fought
Without any mentionable grudges;
On which ailing clouds encroaching unto draught's beauty
You are the plains, and you have the choice:
To rise up out of a fever seething out of the lost ones' lives-
Those who are oblivious to your stars' signs- those who
Died drowned into thirsty.
Or to kiss the eagle on the mouth
While it's waiting for a promised cadaver.
I lead you on towards easy death,
For you I so pave on the mysterious/mythical queens
That you can realize the greatness of walking,
Over their scents, without pitying your withering loneliness.
March 2007.
Translated from Arabic by: Ibrahim Jaffar