From A Negro's Diaries Poem by Hussein Barghouthi

(Extract from 'There Are Viler Words Than These' poetry book)

I stood on the staircase of the palace in her dream,
'your eyes are a tear of love from old lands'

I said to her: 'I come invited to your eyes, neither my family nor dwelling here. But
I passed, strange in steps and stares, by
The gate of things and cities…
To call the exiles in your eyes
The first of homelands…

With my hair frozen like flowers in the mist, I said
To her, and the boundaries that stopped me, stopped me
So I crossed at night the swamps of canes,
And then,
Hung to the rope of secret between the water and the ships.

On the way, I heard that the 'Negros' had failed
For those who went down to the depths of the sea had drowned, and those who
Went up to the surface of the water never made it!

I said: A slave in Baghdad I was, acting in a Shadow play theatre,
My owner a puppet,
And I saw the audience puppets…

And so, thus, o beloved one of a broken horse!
We cross the mud between the song
In the centre of the soul, and exile.
And in the Shadow play theater I was present among the rituals of absence,
And despised the living breath in me.
And when I clown I hear the sound of unseen singing, but
The technique fascinates
In the hall of governed theater!
Dancing begins with ‘skipping', and tomorrow starts the witch-hunt

And I escaped to a slave market in Egypt, a seductress from Persia bought me.
I said: The path is without a moon, and I smell a slaughter here!
She said: 'eat your supper, if you vow to me, do not betray me,
We'll be as, o wolf
Those who befriend' I bought you to turn this animosity in you to a fan that,
at summer, thrusts the perfumes towards me.

I was as who escaped from between the hyenas to a puppetry theater,
And the practice of theater
ending me. I knelt, to me.
She said: are you clowning? I said: 'I am ornamenting myself, like a salt cellar
To add to things a new taste,
But the slaughtered doves point to you
And cry for me'.

..A blue moon
Above my filly's step - while I'm in the valleys
Escaping - a year later..
… Two lit wineries. And my head in her hands an orange
In the snow. And the soul inside me cries, I, the closed one
Like an a triangle of Archimedes,
And free like a straight line.

'Another harsh winter. Who are you? ', I asked
And the question was a hung lantern
In the ceiling of the bar. 'your hair is a parcel of lilies.
Who are you? '
She said: 'A lake
Betrayed by those who betray.
And the wind is sour
And words are smoke'.

And what has my heart to do with this place, I ask you, what
Has my heart to do with this place?

'Drink liquor now,
Did women love you? '
I loved but was never loved.
'How did affection break you apart? '
I was loved but… I didn't love.
'And you wasted your years? From a slave market in Egypt to a bar in Isfahan? '

And what has my heart to do with this time, I ask you, what
Has my heart to do with this time?

…A blue moon.
My gray filly flinched me out of the city's wall,
Hyenas loose around me, circling on the snow,
I, set loose around you like the hyenas,
And your eyes are snow..

And on that snow in your eyes are those hyenas loose.. and my home
is my remains - your eyes -,
I carry my remains between my hands
To the Kaaba of warmth in your eyes I pray to survive I circumambulate to survive
And your eyes are snow..

And this is a moon's ray
In front of your eyelashes, like a scissor, it goes
And comes.
In a transient space of the spaces of my silence.