Death will come and will have your eyes—
this death that accompanies us
from morning till evening, unsleeping,
deaf, like an old remorse
or an absurd vice. Your eyes
will be a useless word,
a suppressed cry, a silence.
That’s what you see each morning
when alone with yourself you lean
toward the mirror. O precious hope,
that day we too will know
that you are life and you are nothingness.
Death has a look for everyone.
Death will come and will have your eyes.
It will be like renouncing a vice,
like seeing a dead face reappear in the mirror,
like listening to a lip that’s shut.
We’ll go down into the maelstrom mute.
Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), a poet, novelist and critic, was a major Italian author of the 20th Century. "Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes" was among the poems found in his desk after his suicide. Considering the circumstances, it's strikingly haunting. (Translated by Geoffrey Brock; reposted from Poem of the Week. You can find the original Italian text, "Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi," here.)
"Speak softly, for this is life,
Life and my consciousness of it,
Because the night advances, I’m tired, I can’t sleep,
And if I go to the window
I see, beneath the eyelids of the beast, the stars’ many dwellings...
I wore out the day hoping I’d sleep at night.
Now it’s night, almost the next day. I’m sleepy. I can’t sleep.
I feel, in this weariness, that I’m all of humanity.
It’s a weariness that almost turns my bones into flesh...
We all share the same lot...
Flies with caught wings, we stagger
Through the world, a spider web spanning the chasm."
- Fernando Pessoa, from A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems
We die, they say
But we never die, they say
We carry our dead in our hearts,
They live in us, they say
They say so much, they say so little…
She was here, they say
I remember her, they say
It was a long time ago, they say
It was like yesterday...
I hear so much, I say so little…
She’s somewhere, they say
Looking over you, they say
I look over my shoulder,
Still searching…
One day she’s at the beach
Collecting shells, they say
And years later I’m back here
Collecting my breath…
I won’t go back, I say
I’m done, I say
I moved on…
But moving on, a part of me snags
Dragging behind like a dead limb.
Is it me? I say
Is it her? I say
They say nothing; they only nod.
I guess that’s how we carry our dead, I say:
Our heart, dragging behind, looking like them… (Originally posted on January 3, 2015)
When a moon rises to moor the evening star,
The Gulf swells, making the distance to Texas
Irrevocable. . . .
There are ships out there
That say goodbye repeatedly in your sleep,
Ships that never arrived
Where someone might still stand waiting
On the far shore.
Meanwhile,
There is the magic Floridian hour
When the sea flashes with sunset,
When the sky becomes almost
Tangible in its painterliness, and memory
Rolls loaded dice across the waves. . . .
Still, in the soft metallic resonance of twilight,
The closest thing you have left to a soul
Is the smoke from your cigarette drifting out the window
Of a hotel room, number nine, and what little
You can remember of the little love you made.
And at night here there’s nothing to do
But lie down beside your lost self
And the lost selves of others you have lost . . .
—As the dark ghosts of ships
Sound their goodbyes, never arriving
at the far shore.
You'd think progress is a continuous forward motion, but it apparently meanders, loops on itself, and sometimes feels like it's going nowhere. Such is the case of gay rights in Lebanon apparently. Twelve years ago this poem was included in Helem's From Heart to Soul: A Feast on Poetry. The poem wasn't anything special: it's not anthemic, it's not heroic, but it is at times explicit in a casual manner. And it is this casual explicitness that feels revolutionary now. I repost it here, on the occasion of the first Beirut Pride and its continuing struggle against homophobia and religious intolerance, because it pisses some people off, those that need to be pissed off. #WhenWeRise #وصمة_عار
The clouds floated out the window
above their chatter;
it was the time when happiness was
capturing their radiant edges
in freshly discovered tempera.
The sea was stoic still in those days,
a giant ashtray for sunbeams.
I had just discovered Michelangelo:
David and Adam glowed
with the sheen of first porn.
And it was raining in Beirut.
My dad waited all evening for my call
and I stubbornly waited for his.
In the end, we didn’t speak.
When I spoke to him today
his voice sounded metallic
like the rain in Beirut.
In between spells of poetry
I cleaned my cum off the bathtub floor.
I awaited something to happen that night,
But nothing stirred.
So I taped myself jerking off
and jerked off to it.
Not knowing what to do next,
I poured my values into a large plastic yellow bowl
and popped it into the microwave,
hoping that in the patter
I may divine my answer.
But my values melted
with the smell of Styrofoam.
The hallway was growing longer,
sprouting doors as it went.
I just stood there,
scratching a carpeted post.
And for some reason,
if you came close enough,
you could smell the sadness, too.
She stood in the middle of the sea
With dead jellyfish floating around;
She opened up her arms and said,
My heart is big enough for everybody.
I did not believe her.
I still don't.
The plucking of the strings
On a white wall that's rubbing off,
Footsteps on cobblestone
And a silence that only the heat is capable of...
Her lies smell like orange peel,
Tart and bitter.
I still comb the shore every now and then
For pieces of jellyfish from that day
But there's nothing on the sand but foam
And the smell of orange peel.
And then, for a long time, nothing happened.
The citizens slept in the sleeping cities
And rose at dawn and worked and loved and slept.
Nobody knew just how long this would last.
It happened because it wanted to happen.
Young, sculptural, the gods rose in the cities.
Lush, sexual, they shone as the citizens slept.
Lovely, they filled the screens but couldn’t last.
It happened because it had to happen.
Moving sleepless through the sleepless cities,
Filling the dreams of citizens who slept,
They too just wanted to sleep at the last.
Not from the snow-marbled heights of mountains,
Not from the deep blue rivers the snow made,
Not from the sweet blue nowhere of the sky,
But from the scented gloss of magazines,
From New York, Houston, and L.A., they came--
To become immortal, and then to die.
The west field, wasted, seems day by day to recede
From the warped kitchen window where you stand in steam,
Your hand gone limp as the rag that won’t drop from it.
Like wom-out records, your frail parents, aging
Even when you were born, in their dotage
Seem more and more the prototypical ghosts
Of themselves, as if fifty years of food
From the same gray land had turned them gray as the land.
They hardly make a sound now, unless it is
To rasp a vague complaint, half remember a year
That has forgotten them, or tap against the table
Some object that’s outlasted its significance.
I used to stroll untroubled down the variegated street,
The street I knew as I knew my own mind,
Where everything was real and without novelty.
And giving myself away to the depths of things,
I was gone.
Later, I doubled back down that same street,
Perhaps hoping to find the past lurking
In that wound of a room we'd shared
In the house on the corner.
And it was as if nothing had happened
In the years since her leaving.
Still, they don't come back, the great days,
The cries clarified with distance,
The fragrant lining of a patent leather shoe
Already beautiful beyond its function.
There was a precise moment towards dusk
When the window of a certain room was ringed with light,
And the dark walnut of an antique desk proclaimed
That those who were able to save themselves
Would be twice reimbursed tomorrow for their suffering.
Now, a V-shape of migrating geese
Or bombers on a practice mission
Freezes in mid-flight and turns to blue ash
In the sky above 1986. - Joe Bolton, from “The Last Nostalgia”
Soon again I'll be home,
Home that's no longer home.
Soon I'll be back where
I left off and I began.
I will circle the rooftops, and throw
my pigeons into familiar skies,
But my pigeons will not return.
Soon I'll be back in my room
That's no longer my room, for I
Have forgotten the color of its walls,
And it has renounced my smell.
Soon I'll be sleeping in your bed,
Like I used to when it was mine.
Soon I'll smile, and they'll smile,
And behind the teeth the distance will cringe.
Soon again I'll be holding your hands,
Looking into your eyes and remembering
Who you are and who I was...
(Originally posted on 17th June 2005 as "In Two Weeks")
أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة محمود درويش أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة احملوا أسماءكم، و انصرفوا و اسرقوا ما شئتم من زرقة البحر و رمل الذاكرة و خذوا ما شئتم من صور، كي تعرفوا إنكم لن تعرفوا كيف يبني حجر من أرضنا سقف السماء أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة منكم السيف ـ و منا دمنا منكم الفولاذ والنار ـ و منا لحمنا منكم دبابة أخرى ـ و منا حجر منكم قنبلة الغاز ـ و منا المطر و علينا ما عليكم من سماء و هواء فخذوا حصتكم من دمنا و انصرفوا و ادخلوا حفل عشاء راقص.. و انصرفوا ..و علينا، نحن، أن نحرس ورد الشهداء !و علينا، نحن، أن نحيا كما نحن نشاء أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة كالغبار المر، مروا أينما شئتم و لكن لا تمروا بيننا كالحشرات الطائرة فلنا في أرضنا ما نعمل و لنا قمح نربيه ونسقيه ندى أجسادنا :و لنا ما ليس يرضيكم هنا حجر.. أو خجل فخذوا الماضي، إذا شئتم، إلى سوق التحف ،و أعيدوا الهيكل العظمى للهدهد، إن شئتم .على صحن خزف فلنا ما ليس يرضيكم: لنا المستقبل و لنا في أرضنا ما نعمل أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة كدسوا أوهامكم في حفرة مهجورة، و انصرفوا و أعيدوا عقرب الوقت إلى شرعية العجل المقدس !أو إلى توقيت موسيقى مسدس فلنا ما ليس يرضيكم هنا، فانصرفوا و لنا ما ليس فيكم، وطن ينزف شعبا ينزف ..وطنا يصلح للنسيان أو للذاكرة ،أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة آن أن تنصرفوا و تقيموا أينما شئتم، و لكن لا تموتوا بيننا فلنا في أرضنا ما نعمل و لنا الماضي هنا و لنا صوت الحياة الأول و لنا الحاضر، والحاضر، والمستقبل و لنا الدنيا هنا... والآخرة فاخرجوا من أرضنا من برنا.. من بحرنا من قمحنا.. من ملحنا.. من جرحنا من كل شيء، و اخرجوا من ذكريات الذاكرة !أيها المارون بين الكلمات العابرة..
Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words by Mahmoud Darwish
O those who pass between fleeting words
Carry your names, and be gone
Rid our time of your hours, and be gone
Steal what you will from the blueness of the sea and the sand of memory
Take what pictures you will, so that you understand
That which you never will:
How a stone from our land builds the ceiling of our sky.
O those who pass between fleeting words
From you the sword—from us the blood
From you steel and fire—from us our flesh
From you yet another tank—from us stones
From you tear gas—from us rain
Above us, as above you, are sky and air
So take your share of our blood—and be gone
Go to a dancing party—and be gone
As for us, we have to water the martyrs’ flowers
As for us, we have to live as we see fit.
O those who pass between fleeting words
As bitter dust, go where you wish, but
Do not pass between us like flying insects
For we have work to do in our land:
We have wheat to grow which we water with our bodies’ dew
We have that which does not please you here:
Stones or partridges
So take the past, if you wish, to the antiquities market
And return the skeleton to the hoopoe, if you wish,
On a clay platter
We have that which does not please you: we have the future
And we have things to do in our land.
O those who pass between fleeting words
Pile your illusions in a deserted pit, and be gone
Return the hand of time to the law of the golden calf
Or to the time of the revolver’s music!
For we have that which does not please you here, so be gone
And we have what you lack: a bleeding homeland of a bleeding people
A homeland fit for oblivion or memory
O those who pass between fleeting words
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
We have the past here
We have the first cry of life
We have the present, the present and the future
We have this world here, and the hereafter
So leave our country
Our land, our sea
Our wheat, our salt, our wounds
Everything, and leave
The memories of memory
O those who pass between fleeting words!
(—Translation from the Jerusalem Post, April 2, 1988)
I forget the feeling now,
but I remember the side of your face,
wrinkled with a smile,
framing the rest of the world,
dark, blue, radiant,
and paling...
I remember only that I loved you:
the car parked on the side of the road,
sloping, looming over the winding night,
the music that I bend in my memory,
and the rain…
It was the first time it rained.
Leaves were thirsty still, and smiling.
The night glowed like only a sick mind could,
and danced ahead of me all the way.
I forget how I loved you.
I remember only the cobblestone,
the light—yellow and trite—
and your schoolbook of French poetry on the steps.
We always left the sex kit under the seat of your car:
a stolen vial of lube, condoms,
and the rest of my youth.
Some nights I can taste it still:
the humidity in the trees,
the guilt in the parking lot,
the fantasies we spun of our hunger,
and a faint smell of bliss.
Like the steak sizzling on a bed of salt,
there—where you taught me about strawberries,
and champagne, and the other weapons of love—
I was vacant and anticipating,
and prone on the piled plastic chairs,
and you were generous with the pain.
That I remember well.
When even the anger has dissipated,
something like regret lingers.
I call it love, or what comes after,
or what remains.
I call it nothing when I am tired,
and the world rushes in,
and I can barely remember the name.
