Mahmoud Darwish Puns

In her absence I created her image: out of the earthly

the hidden heavenly commences. I am here weighing

the expanse with the Jahili odes ... and absence

is the guide, it is the guide. For each rhyme a tent

is pitched. And for each thing blowing in the wind

a rhyme. Absence teaches me its lesson: If it weren’t

for the mirage you wouldn’t have been steadfast ...

Then in the emptiness, I disassembled a letter from one

of the ancient alphabets, and I leaned on absence. So who am I

after the visitation? A bird, or a passerby amid the symbols

and the memory vendors? As if I were an antique piece,

as if I were a ghost sneaking in from Yabous, telling myself:

Let’s go to the seven hills. Then I placed

my mask on a stone, and walked as the sleepless

walk, led by my dream. And from one moon

to another I leapt. There is enough of unconsciousness

to liberate things from their history. And there

is enough of history to liberate unconsciousness

from its ascension. Take me to our early

years—my first girlfriend says. Leave

the windows open for the house sparrow to enter

your dream—I say ... then I awaken, and no city is in

the city. No “here” except “there.” And no there

but here. If it weren’t for the mirage

I wouldn’t have walked to the seven hills ...

if it weren’t for the mirage!

>They asked “do you love her to death?” I said “speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.”

علَى هَذِهِ الأَرْض مَا يَسْتَحِقُّ الحَياةْ: تَرَدُّدُ إبريلَ, رَائِحَةُ الخُبْزِ فِي

الفجْرِ، آراءُ امْرأَةٍ فِي الرِّجالِ، كِتَابَاتُ أَسْخِيْلِيوس، أوَّلُ الحُبِّ، عشبٌ

عَلَى حجرٍ، أُمَّهاتٌ تَقِفْنَ عَلَى خَيْطِ نايٍ, وخوفُ الغُزَاةِ مِنَ الذِّكْرياتْ.

عَلَى هَذِهِ الأرْض ما يَسْتَحِقُّ الحَيَاةْ: نِهَايَةُ أَيلُولَ، سَيِّدَةٌ تترُكُ

الأَرْبَعِينَ بِكَامِلِ مشْمِشِهَا, ساعَةُ الشَّمْسِ فِي السَّجْنِ، غَيْمٌ يُقَلِّدُ سِرْباً مِنَ

الكَائِنَاتِ، هُتَافَاتُ شَعْبٍ لِمَنْ يَصْعَدُونَ إلى حَتْفِهِمْ بَاسِمينَ, وَخَوْفُ

الطُّغَاةِ مِنَ الأُغْنِيَاتْ.

عَلَى هَذِهِ الأرْضِ مَا يَسْتَحِقُّ الحَيَاةْ: عَلَى هَذِهِ الأرضِ سَيَّدَةُ

الأُرْضِ، أُمُّ البِدَايَاتِ أُمَّ النِّهَايَاتِ. كَانَتْ تُسَمَّى فِلِسْطِين. صَارَتْ تُسَمَّى

فلسْطِين. سَيِّدَتي: أَستحِقُّ، لأنَّكِ سيِّدَتِي، أَسْتَحِقُّ الحَيَاةْ.

The Earth is closing on us
pushing us through the last passage
and we tear off our limbs to pass through.
The Earth is squeezing us.
I wish we were its wheat
so we could die and live again.
I wish the Earth was our mother
so she'd be kind to us.
I wish we were pictures on the rocks
for our dreams to carry as mirrors.
We saw the faces of those who will throw
our children out of the window of this last space.
Our star will hang up mirrors.

Where should we go after the last frontiers?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?
We will write our names with scarlet steam.
We will cut off the hand of the song to be finished by our flesh.
We will die here, here in the last passage.
Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree.

Hey! Does anyone know where I can buy Mahmoud darwish’s poetry books in arabic? I don’t live in the Middle East and I don’t know any websites online that sell arabic books. My google searches aren’t helping either :(

A stranger on the riverbank, like the river... water

binds me to your name. Nothing brings me back from my faraway

to my palm tree: not peace and not war. Nothing makes me enter the gospels. Not a thing ... nothing sparkles from the shore of ebb and flow between the Euphrates and the Nile. Nothing

makes me descend from the pharaoh’s boats. Nothing

carries me or makes me carry an idea: not longing

and not promise. What will I do? What will I do without exile, and a long night that stares at the water?

Water binds me to your name ... Nothing takes me from the butterflies of my dreams

to my reality: not dust and not fire. What will I do without roses from Samarkand? What will I do in a theater that burnishes the singers with its lunar

stones? Our weight has become light like our houses

in the faraway winds. We have become two friends of the strange

creatures in the clouds ... and we are now loosened

from the gravity of identity’s land. What will we do … what

will we do without exile, and a long night that stares at the water?

Water binds me to your name ... There’s nothing left of me but you, and nothing left of you

but me, the stranger massaging his stranger’s thigh: O

stranger! what will we do with what is left to us of calm ... and of a snooze between two myths? And nothing carries us: not the road and not the house.

Was this road always like this, from the start, or did our dreams find a mare on the hill among the Mongol horses and exchange us for it? And what will we do? What will we do without exile?

I have become increasingly interested in Arabic poetry as of late, and I find it beautiful when I listen to it in the original tongue, but unfortunately do not read or speak Arabic. I was wondering if those of you familiar with his work could recommend a book to start with to introduce myself to his poetry that is translated into English? I was thinking Palestine as Metaphor or In the Presence of Absence, although I know that is his last published work of poems (in English at least), so it may not be the best as an introduction. I've read a little bit of his poetry so I would really love to read more. Thank you in advance!

Like a small café on the street of strangers–
that’s love… its doors open to all.
Like a café that expands and
contracts with the weather:
if it pours with rain its customers increase,
if the weather’s fine, they are few and weary…
I am here, stranger, sitting in the corner.
(What colour are your eyes? What is your name?
How shall I call to you as you pass by,
as I sit waiting for you?)
A small café, that’s love
I order two glasses of wine
and drink to my health and yours.
I am carrying two caps
and an umbrella. It is raining now.
It is raining more than ever,
and you do not come in.
I say to myself at last: Perhaps she who I was waiting for
was waiting for me, or was waiting for some other man,
or was waiting for us, and did not find him/me.
She would say: Here I am waiting for you.
(What colour are your eyes? What is your name?
What kind of wine do you prefer? How shall I call to you when
you pass by?)
A small café, that’s love…

Hi beautiful people of Jordan!

I was just wondering where I can find any audio books for Mahmoud Darwish? (in Arabic)

I didn't apologize to the well when I passed the well, I borrowed from the ancient pine tree a cloud and squeezed it like an orange, then waited for a gazelle white and legendary. And I ordered my heart to be patient: Be neutral as if you were not of me! Right here the kind shepherds stood on air and evolved their flutes, then persuaded the mountain quail toward the snare. And right here I saddled a horse for flying toward my planets, then flew. And right here the priestess told me: Beware of the asphalt road and the cars and walk upon your exhalation. Right here I slackened my shadow and waited, I picked the tiniest rock and stayed up late. I broke the myth and I broke. And I circled the well until I flew from myself to what isn't of it. A deep voice shouted at me: This grave isn't your grave. So I apologized. I read verses from the wise holy book, and said to the unknown one in the well: Salaam upon you the day you were killed in the land of peace, and the day you rise from the darkness of the well alive!

I was recently introduced to the poetry of Darwish and I was hoping someone could recommend an English translation of some of his works.

Not sure if this breaks Rule 3. If it does, I apologize.

>When he wrote this poem, Mahmoud Darwish was an angry young poet, living in Haifa. He was born in 1941 in the village of El-Birweh (subsequently the site of Moshav Ahihud and Kibbutz Yasur), fled with his landed family in 1947 to Lebanon, returning to the Galilee to scrape by as outsiders in Dir al-Assad. At the time of writing, the Arab locales in Israel were controlled by the Military Government established in 1948 (and abolished by Moshe Dayan in 1966) and every area of civilian life from registering a birth to traveling outside the locale required a document signed by the military governor. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.haaretz.com/amp/life/books/how-mahmoud-darwish-enraged-lieberman-1.5413700

Write it down! I’m an Arab

My card number is 50000

My children number eight

And after this summer, a ninth on his way.

Does this make you rage?

I am an Arab.

With my quarry comrades I labor hard

My children number eight

I tug their bread, their clothes

And their notebooks

From within the rock

I don’t beg at your door

I don’t cower on your threshold

So does this make you rage?

Write it down!

I am an Arab.

I am a name with no honorific.

Patient in a land

Where everything lives in bursting rage

My roots were planted before time was born

Before history began

Before the cypress and the olive trees

Before grass sprouted

My father is from the plough clan

Not from the noble class

My grandfather was a peasant farmer

Had no pedigree

Taught me the pride of the sun

Before teaching me to read

A shack to guard groves is my home,

Made of branches and reeds

Are you pleased with my status?

I am a name with no honorific.

Write it down!

I am an Arab.

Hair color: charcoal

Eye color: brown

Attributes:

A cord around the quffiyeh on my head

My hand as hard as rock

That scratches if you touch it

My address:

I am from a forgotten abandoned village

Its streets nameless

All its men in the fields and quarries

Does this make you rage?

Write it down!

I am an Arab.

You have stolen my ancestors’ groves

And the land we cultivated

I and all my children

Leaving nothing for us and all my grandchildren

Except these rocks

Will your government take them

Like people say?

Therefore,

Write down on the top of the first page:

I do not hate people

And I do not steal from anyone

But if I starve

I will eat my oppressor’s flesh

Beware, beware of my starving

And my rage.

A passenger on the bus says… nothing impresses me.

Not the radio, the morning newspapers, or even fortresses on hills. I long for a weep.

The bus driver says: Wait until we reach the station, and weep alone as you can.

A lady says: Me too. Nothing impresses me. I spoiled my son upon my grave, he enjoyed it and slept without saying goodbye.

A university student says: Me neither. Nothing impresses me. I studied archaeology without finding an identity in stones. Am I really me?

A solider says: Me too. Nothing impresses me. I guard a ghost that always haunts me.

The angry driver replies: We are close to our last stop, get ready to leave.

They scream: We want what is beyond the station, so go.

.As for me, I say: Drop me here. I am like them, nothing impresses me. But I am tired from travelling.

From you steel and fire, from us our flesh

From you yet another tank, from us stones

From you teargas, from us rain...

It is time for you to be gone

Live wherever you like, but do not live among us

It is time for you to be gone

Die wherever you like, but do not die among us

For we have work to do in our land.

They didn’t ask: “What is beyond death?”

As they were memorizing the map of paradise

More than the book of earth

Consumed with another question:

“What will we do before this death?”

Alongside our lives we live and we don’t

As if our lives are desert lots disputed between territory gods.

And we are dust’s bygone neighbors.

Our lives are a burden

To the chronicler’s night:

He says: “Whenever I hide them

They appear out of the absence..”

Our lives are a burden

To the Artist:

He says:

“I draw them

Only to become

One of them

Then fog swallows me”

Our lives are a burden

To the General,

How can blood

drip from a ghost?

And our lives is wanting to be what we want.

We want to live a little more

Not for anything other than to respect

resurrection after this death.

And they quoted,

Unintentionally,

The philosopher’s words:

Death means nothing to us.

We are, therefore it isn’t.

Death means nothing to us.

It is, therefore we aren’t.

Then they rearranged their dreams

in a different manner.

And slept, standing!

A woman asked the cloud:

please enfold my loved one.

My clothes are soaked with his blood

If you shall not be rain, my love

Be trees

Saturated with fertility, be trees

And if you shall not be trees, my love

Be a stone

Saturated with humidity, be a stone

And if you shall not be a stone, my love

Be a moon

In the loved one’s dream, be a moon

So said a woman to her son

In his funeral

He goes on to add:

During the siege, time becomes a space

That has hardened in its eternity

During the siege, space becomes a time

That is late for its yesterday and tomorrow.