The Picture Of The Jack In The Playing Cards Poem by Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen

In his childhood
He sat in the street begging for a mother.
In his boyhood
He sat in the café opposite to the cemetery
Begging for a father.
In his youth
He sat at History leafing the years
Begging for a grandfather.
When he grew aged
He remembered that he had never played cards.
He gambled so as to lose everything
To lose the street, the café, the History,
The childhood, the boyhood and the youth.

After his horrible loss,
He checked his pockets under the big setting sun.
He found nothing in them
Only found the picture of the Jack in the playing cards
The picture of the Jack,
Perhaps was hidden by Time into his torn pockets
To deepen his ruin and earthquake.

The boy was nice-looking.
Because of him,
He crossed the great desert to see him.
Yes, he was nicer than an angel's tear.
When the boy grew older
Everything changed.
It was said that the boy is Satan
The boy is As-Sheen
An-Nuun
The dot.

The boy said,
Said the boy:
The woman who sits beside the king
Does not deserve that
For she plays the game of Ah.
He also said: the one who sits under the king's foot
Does not deserve that
For she plays the game of nakedness.
And the one who bears the king's fan
And drives his chariot
Does not deserve that
For he knows that the air is not fresh
But he does not utter a word
And he knows that the chariot only goes back
But does not raise the street behind it.
The boy said
And said.

It is said that the boy is a heresy.
The boy is confusion.
The boy is a remarkable damnation
As long as we travel in the wrong ship
Into the wrong sea
In the wrong direction
Voyaging to the sun of unfaithfulness and brass
Not to the sun of assurance and gold.

What made me believe what was said by the boy?
The boy was nice-looking
Wearing the crown of youth on his head
And the pearl of meaning
And a handless watch.
The boy was as sharp as the sword
That cut the heads off my grandfathers
And the head off my dream
And the head off my letter and dot.

here to go now?
Was the boy lying or exaggerating?
Was the boy dreaming or talking nonsense?
Or was I the one who was dreaming and talking nonsense?
Was the boy really in the playing cards?
Or was it a playing with the picture of the Jack?
Which one of us is the boy, which one of us is the father?
Is the boy really the prince?
That is what I certainly say
And I say just one word:
The boy is all that is left for me
After I lost everything.
The boy is the exile
The exile that I see now from my royal veranda
Which is surrounded by fire, curses
And the naked masses of people.
The exile that I see now
Eyeless
Lipless.
The exile whose stones roll on
With great slowness and pain.