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Abdulkareem Kasid

5/14/2014

 
Picture
Poet, writer and translator , whose poetry appeared in English in the first Anthology of translated Arabic poetry (1987, Columbia University press), and in Iraqi Poetry Today (2003, King’s college, London). He is also featured in the Dictionary of Contemporary Arabic Authors published in 1985, in Arabic and German. One of his last projects was working with the ‘motion group’ on A Soldier’s Tale which showed at the Old Vic Theatre in London.
He has published several collections including The Bags (1975), Tapping on the Doors of Childhood (1978), Epitaph (1981), Bicagy's Rose (1983), Promenade of Sadness (1991), Sarabad (1997), Ticking Unreachable from Light (1998), Kifa Nabki (2002, which translated means Halt-let us weep), The Insane do not Tire (short story collection, 2004), Zihariat (2005), The Feast of the Funeral (2007), The Moroccan Divan (2008), Selected Poems (2009) and The Poet outside the Text (2007) (an Interview with Abdulkareem Kasid by Abdul Karder Al Jamoosi). 

we'll highlight the poet's work in translation on another occasion.

cafés

 1
A café near the bridge –

At daybreak

The boats call there.

They wait and wait

Then set off again, empty

Moving without oars

So where could those boats be going?

 

 
2
A café – one day

The river swept it away

Along with its customers

Its chairs

Its tables.

Look, it’s down there,

A tree, growing out of

Its forehead like a horn,

A tree in the middle of emptiness

 

 3
A café, when I was a child

And all I can remember

Is a white fox fur

Hanging there when you went in.

Eyes closed it had a child’s face,

And shadows blown this way and that by the wind –

A café which, no doubt, existed

Only in my dream

 

 4
A café

And facing it a river.

On the river bank there’s someone

Sitting, drinking tea.

He stares into the cafe mirror

Where the houris are passing

In the street – or is it the river ?

This café no longer exists.

 

 5
The café is no longer there where it should be.

The street is no longer there

The people are no longer there,

Even the dead have migrated to different graves

So what is it you look for,

O revenant?

 

 

 6
I don’t know why this is cause for rejoicing,

Three hanged men swaying in the air

A single tree

And people clustered around it.

Some of them have chosen to sit over there

In the café, facing towards the tree

To watch the feet sway back and forth in the air.

In a moment they’ll all come down

And leave this spot once and for all

 7

A café, divided in two by a road,

Awnings attached to its sides

They stretch as far as the eye can see

‘Where will those awnings ever come to an end?’

The child asked,

Growing giddy.

 

 
8
A café in the distance –

I see it now as a tree

Its roof made of branches and leaves

Chairs made of wood.

The people who go there like to sit down

Lightly, on the branches.

 

 
9
Chairs don’t baa like sheep,

They stay silent

And stare at the river all day

As if they were waiting for someone

But, when evening falls,

All of a sudden they go

One by one down to the river

And the air is filled with their baa-ing.

 

10
The boat, that cast anchor

In the river, alongside the market,

It’s no longer a boat

Since summer surprised it with whiteness

And the chairs were lined up on its deck

And the passers-by came on board

No longer waiting 

For its siren to sound.

 

 11
Here

Every pavement has its café.

Often my shadow and I

We share the same table

We don’t grow impatient

Waiting, for who?

 Sometimes my shadow leaves me

And I don’t even realise he’s gone

(Left, to go where?)

 

 12
The other café, ready to take off

Like a flying saucer,

I didn’t see it when I went back

Nor did I see its customers –

They were friends of mine

Where are they now –

On which planet?

 

13
A café that limps,

It stands on one leg

Beside the river

And it doesn’t move from there

Until this tree approaches

Sailing through the night

And provides it with a second leg.

 

 14
A drowning sun

Calls for help from the boats.

The river is buried

In the depths of its solitude.

In the meantime a light

Disappears, then goes out altogether

A café no doubt!






 ORIGINAL POEM IN ARABIC BY: ABDULKARIM KASID


TRANSLATED FROM A FRENCH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISH POET:  JOHN WELCH





http://tearsinthefence.com/2012/11/28/the-many-cafes-of-john-welch/

 

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