Remote
I do not see myself,
Ashen occupied by letters
I shatter to reunite
Dark language embraces me: a descendent of hell,
Observing the ashes
Proud and listening like a bashful candelabra
I begin
I transform as I start:
Like a storm I love the air that breaks the conviction of dust,
I ascend followed by admirers
My destruction is as likely as the affairs of the body
Journeying with guilt
And proclaiming the Whitish piracy
With the speed of a cloud I incinerate the openness of the desert
Lest I succeed in defeat
Lest I pulverize and fall further
My only weapon: your disobedience
My fingers
A corpse.
Mercilessly
You must increase your ferocity
Without an apology
-The essentially difficult struggle has lost the pretext for life –
It leads the gnawing fangs to itself to cure the unknown extent of injury
They overreached as well
And also
Granted me
The descendent of ink, craving water
I unconsciously awaken to the pursuit of the letter
As I had lived
I transform into a twig when the field sees me
I fight battles that embrace me with corpses
I live
Like silence
1
The sound of death
Slaughtered by events
Without power…debating it
Free as a jug in danger of breaking
Mud never forgets the childhood of the river
Thus,
I do not hesitate as I encounter me
I doubt the unquestionable
Doubt grumbles about me
A world that surrounds me with the unacceptable
I whisper: oh fence slow down
I am not an incompetent garden
Hand me the hoe
The harshness of my feet is apparent
It tilts backwards
I blame that which will not depart
I do not stumble on false steps of childhood’s axe
I totter whenever inaudible
I was dying unnoticed
And whenever I would die
I would penetrate a well too difficult for clay
I became famous in spite of myself
In a hidden hole covered by a corpse that resembles me
I do not see people’s weariness as they descend
Towards a delayed intercession
Weighed down by the art of death,
I listen to the roaring silence
To serpents discovering crevices and enclosure
I sometimes revive,
In clothes favoring an inquiring body,
Risking the distortions of delusional blood
I revive,
Like a feather bearing the sky in a bird’s skeleton in fear of collapse
It covers the earth with the scent of air in fear of spoilage
Unwillingly I walk
Woe to the lances that oxidizes in me.
2
I will not slow down
Slowness is the profession of rottenness,
Demolishing the debris, the bravery of opposition
Without a path and I incline
The day has the scent of fire,
And night the burning of the moon
And I a stone wrenched between the scent and the fire.
Give me a hoe,
Hanging,
The sky is unable to sense the head
And the earth over there is unable to touch the shadow,
Hanging,
As if I do not know
I renovate like the mole that sees nothing except the dam.
I renovate the air
Subject to demolition each destruction lit by it
I do not know
Is he being merciful to me, hard on me
He handed me a hoe
Distant
My body does not see me
I withdraw
To embarrass the lance
I do not know
I wish the day to become night as well, so that I know
I would like to investigate what distances me from you
Unfortunately I am not granted the gift of observing
The disasters that are professionally observed
I gaze at the smoldering embers
To interpret the coal’s grave
The chalk flies around me chanting of chasm.
Like an embryo prepared for insanity, I proclaim
With each flying bird I see the frivolity of my hatred
Go away
3
Lest my sympathy reach you
No consolation for solitude
I will not shield myself with another
Like air, nothing is mine
Each tomorrow is an enemy.
Oh Lord
Emulate me
Justice is confined by unjustified freedom
I was condemned without a crime
Thus
Without a sword or bullets
Standing in front of fascists
Proclaiming war and victory at once.
I seek shelter in the embers mastery of urgency
Swindled, I exchange the soul for a soiled body
Weighted by a family that thinks that iron is my necklace
A woman weary of eyeglasses that kindles the sight
Eyes fixed in the mist
Test me oh death
Before I betray you.
Written by: Fawzeya Al Sendi
Translated by: Mouna Schaheen
Published in 2005, in the book – Hostage of Pain, (Rahinat Al Alam)- by The Arab Association of research and publishing (Al mu’as sasa Al 3arabiya Lil Dirasat Wal Nashr), Beirut, Lebanon.