Father’s Picture
That’s Father’s picture
languishing in the storage room
in its golden frame
and antiquated colors…
Father… in his full shape …
with the shirt flies have laid eggs on…
and his neck tie—
falling asleep with a half smile
under a lame fan
The wall’s mold covers what
has remained but he is
still Father…in his full death
holding his scepter
and his gorgeous image…
in this house full of furniture
and everything else his righteous sons
have waived their rights to—
a heater without oil
a few empty bottles
clothes too small for their bodies
a bag of old school books…
and Himself in his full glory!
He sits quietly
hearing their slippers
the groans from their wives
water spilled in the bathroom
He smells….
what comes from the kitchen
the fragrance of food…
a very old father
unfit for visiting relatives
or spending money on the first of the month:
“Perhaps he’s a good fit to curse
his children while he sleeps!”
But anyway… he’s a father
living in the damp storage room—
his children praise him on holidays
his wife remembers him
whenever the pain of remembering bites her…
a father whose joints are invaded by darkness
who hugs his picture…
and dies
صورة الأب
تلك هي صورة الأب
تقبع في غرفة الخزين
بأطارها الذهبي….
وألوانها الحائلة….
أبٌ… بكامل هيئتهِ…
القميص الذي باض عليه الذباب
وربطة العنق….
تغفو تحت ساقِ المروحة العرجاء
ونصف ابتسامةٍ
أتى على ما تبقى منها …. عفن الجدار
غير أنه أب …. بكامل موتهِ
يحمل صولجانه….
وصورته البهيّة
الى مسكنه….
المؤثث بكل ما تنازل عنه أبناؤه البررة
مدفأة خاوية من الزيت
وبضع قنان فارغةً
وملابس ضاقت بأجسادهم
وكيس من الكتب المدرسية القديمة
هو بكامل هيبته أيضاً
يجلس صامتاً
يسمع خفق نعالهم
وتأوّه زوجاتهم
والماء المنسكب في الحمّام
ويشمٌ ….
ما يصدرُ عن المطبخ
من رائحة الطعام….
أبٌ قديم جّداً
لا يصلح لزيارة ذوي القربى
أو للأنفاق في أولِ الشهر
“ربّما يصلح لشتم ِ ذرّيته ساعة ينام”
ولكنّه على أيّة حالٍ …. أبٌ
يقبع في غرفة الخزين الرطبةِ
يمتدحه أبناؤه في الأعياد
وتذكره زوجته ….
كلّما عضها وجع التذكر….
أبٌ يغزو الظلام مفاصلَه
فيحضن صورته….
ويموت
Goodbyes
Each morning, I choose a certain street
and spend the day in its heart.
When night falls, I write a poem of thanks.
I thank him for the terraces
which only I sat upon
and the bushes I hid behind.
When I glimpsed a man from afar off
who knew me, I thanked him also.
He nearly cried when I turned
to him, as if to say, “Come back
if you can’t find a street to harbor you.”
•••••
All tears have homes.
I’ve never read about a homeless tear
nor have I met any of them rolling around in the streets
or seen a flood that resulted
from an outpouring of weeping.
Friends, we are warm homes for each other’s tears.
Houses sing with the names of mournful criers,
those who weep when they inhabit our souls
without knowing.
•••••
Everything left on the lonely table:
empty coffee cups
crusts of dry bread
tissues of those who rushed out
the bags of those who arrived late and slept
everything
even the remains of a man’s tear
who was thinking of heading out but didn’t know where
••••
I will say good-bye to the silent mountain
of withered grass, deafened
and defaced
by heaps of dead birds.
When I pointed at him, I realized he had no eyes
to follow the footsteps of my departure.
I stuffed his heart with dynamite
and exploded it, leaving gaping holes
for other men to sleep in,
men who didn’t have the words
to bid farewell
as the holes in his forehead multiplied.
وداعات
كلّ صباح
أختار شارعاً
لأقضي نهاري في قلبه
وحين يجنُّ الليل
أكتب له قصيدة شكر
أشكره
على مصاطب
لم يجلس عليها سواي
و شجيراتٍ اختبأتُ خلفها
حين لمحت من بعيد رجلاً يعرفني
أشكره لأنّه كاد أن يبكي
عندما التفتُّ إليه
كما لو أنّه يقول لي:
عدْ ثانيةً
إن لم تجد شارعاً يؤويك
•••••
كلُّ الدموع لها بيوت
فلمْ أقرأ أبداً عن دمعةٍ مشرّدة
لم أصادف منها
ما يتدحرج في الشوارع
ولم أجد طوفاناً
يعزى إلى فيض من البكاء
نحن يا صاح
بيوت دافئة لدموع الآخرين
بيوتٌ تصدح بأسماء البكائين الحزانى
أولئك الذين ينتحبون
عندما يسكنون أرواحنا
دون أن يعرفوا
•••••
كل شيء على الطاولة الوحيدة:
فناجين القهوة الفارغة
بقايا الخبز اليابس
مناديل من سارعوا بالخروج
من البيت
وحقائب من وصلوا متأخّرين
فناموا
كلّ شيء
حتّى بقايا دمعة رجلٍ
كان ينوي الخروج
ولم يعرف إلى أين
••••
سأقول: وداعا للجبل
جبلٌ أخرس
يصمّ سمعه العشب اليابس
وأكداس الطيور النافقة
أشرت إليه بيدي
فعرفت أنّه بلا عيون
تتبع خطى المودّعين
حشوت قلبه بالديناميت
فانفجر
مخلفاً حفراً عميقةً
ينام في جوفها
رجالٌ آخرون
لا يعرفون بأيّةِ لغة يودعون الجبل
حين تتكاثر الحفر في جبينه
The Edge Of The Earth
At the edge of the earth,
you can recline on a chair
and study distant trees
as small as blades of grass.
The chair might be your home
if there was another beside it
(a good neighbor)
occupied by a woman
watching the same trees thicken
into a forest, branches mingling
there at the world’s edge—
a scene of a man and woman
embracing in a green painting
drawn by God as He contemplates
the creation of a new sky.
حافّة الأرض
على حافة الأرض
يمكن لك أن تجلس على كرسيٍّ
وتنظر إلى الشجر من بعيد
كما لو أنّه عشب يحبو
كرسيٌّ بذراعين
يمكن له أن يكون بيتاً
عندما يحاذيه كرسيٌّ آخر
يحسن الجوار
تسكنه امرأة تنظر من بعيد
إلى الشجر ذاته
فيتطاول حتى يغدو غابة
تشتبك أغصانها عند حافة الأرض
يمكن لكل ذلك
أن يكون مشهداً لامرأة ورجل
يتعانقان في لوحة خضراء
يرسمها الله
عندما يفكّر
أن يخلق سماء جديدة
The Iraqi poet and translator, ABBOUD AL JABIRI, was born in Najaf in 1963. A member of the Iraqi Writers’ Union and the Arab Writers’ Union, he was one of the founders of the Iraqi Youth Literature forum. His five poetry collections are Index of Faults (2007) and Lean on his Blindness (2009), The Museum of Sleep (2012), The Hand’s First Thought (2015) and The Colouring of the Enemies (2017). Since 1993 he has been living and working in Amman, in Jordan.
MUNTATHER ALSAWAD was educated in his home country of Iraq, where he studied literary criticism and published stories and poems in Arabic. Since arriving in the US, he has devoted himself to translating Iraqi poetry into English, as well as writing English language poetry of his own. He lives in Portland, Maine and works at the Portland Museum of Art. His translations have appeared in Asymptote, Samovar, MAYDAY Magazine, Last Stanza, AzonaL and others.
JEFFREY CLAPP has published poems, stories, and translations in North American Review, Arkansas Review, Dalhousie Review, Sycamore Review, Asymptote, Samovar et al; several have been reprinted in anthologies. One of his translations will appear in the forthcoming Best Literary Translations 2024 on Deep Vellum Press. He is past recipient of the Daniel Morin Poetry Prize from the University of NH and the Indiana Fiction Prize from Purdue. He lives in South Portland, Maine.
ANNA REYES has always been involved with poems and her interest in art. She has been published in one newsletter and one spiritually based online magazine, Clayjar Poetry Review.