Mahmoud Darwich, et la terre comme la langue
Video by 4SeasonsProductions
Compran países, pueblos, mares,People have resisted their power, sometimes successfully, though always only at great costs to themselves.
policías, diputaciones,
lejanas comarcas en donde
los pobres guardan su maíz
como los avaros el oro:
la Standard Oil los despierta,
los uniforma, les designa
cuál es el hermano enemigo,
y el paraguayo hace su guerra
y el boliviano se deshace
con su ametralladora en la selva.
They buy countries, people, seas, police, county councils,
distant regions where the poor hoard their corn
like misers their gold:
Standard Oil awakens them,
clothes them in uniforms, designates
which brother is the enemy.
the Paraguayan fights its war,
and the Bolivian wastes away
in the jungle with its machine gun.
Answers to many of the questions in the Islamic tradition today will be found in the Islamic tradition itself if Muslims seek them there.ای صاحب فتوی ز تو پر کارتریم
با این همه مستی ز تو هُشیار تریم
تو خون کسان خوری و ما خون رزان
انصاف بـده کـدام خونخوار تریم؟
O City Mufti, you go more astray
Than I do, though to wine I do give way;
I drink the blood of grapes, you that of men:
Which of us is the more bloodthirsty, pray?
-- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,
Trans. Edward Henry Whinfield, 1883
CultureShabtai refused to participate in the Fifth International Poetry Festival in Jerusalem in 2006, living by his conviction that "even poets were not allowed in the past, and not in the present, to ignore persecutions and discriminations on a racial or national basis," and will be boycotting the Turin Book Fair (8-12 May 2008) and the Salon du Livre de Paris (14-18 March 2008) where Israel will be the "guest of honor."
by Aharon Shabtai
The mark of Cain won't sprout
from a soldier who shoots
at the head of a child
on a knoll by the fence
around a refugee camp --
for beneath his helmet,
conceptually speaking,
his head is made of cardboard.
On the other hand,
the officer has read The Rebel;
his head is enlightened,
and so he does not believe
in the mark of Cain.
He's spent time in museums,
and when he aims
his rifle at a boy
as an ambassador of Culture,
he updates and recycles
Goya's etchings
and Guernica.
The New Monastics
by Dennis Brutus
Tall black-shadowed cypresses
slender beside arcaded cloisters:
thus were monastic enterprises:
now with our new doctrines
secular-consumerist we bend
with similar devoutness in service
to our modern pantheon --
Bretton Woods, its cohort deities
-- World Bank, IMF, WTO --
diligently we recite
"We have loved, o lord, the beauty of your house
and the place where your glory dwells"
"Amen" we chorus in unison
as ordered by our Heads of State
obediently we traipse to our slaughterhouse
directed by our Judas-goats
Mbeki's herds tricked out in shabby rags
discarded by imperialist gauleiters
who devised our Neepad subjugation
ActionAid Economic Justice course,
Kenyan School of Monetary Studies
Nairobi, November 26, 2007
Requiem
The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father,
They know not what they do."
The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.
Let the ascetics sing of the garden of Paradise --
Who dwell in the true ecstasy can forget their vase-tamed bouquet.
In our hall of mirrors, the map of the one Face appears
As the sun's splendor would spangle a world made of dew.
Hidden in this image is also its end,
As peasants' lives harbor revolt and unthreshed corn sparks with fire.
Hidden in my silence are a thousand abandoned longings:
My words the darkened oil lamp on a stranger's unspeaking grave.
Ghalib, the road of change is before you always:
The only line stitching this world's scattered parts.
The Approaching HourWhat awakening is in store for us today? And are we ready?
You Communists and Republicans!
all you Germans and Frenchmen!
you corpses and quickeners!
The stars are about to melt
and fall on you in tears.
Get ready! Get ready!
you Papists and Protestants!
you whores and you virtuous!
The moon will be bread
and drop presently into your baskets.
Friends and those who despise
and detest us!
Adventists and those who believe
nothing!
Get ready for the awakening.
| Carte postale de Palestine A Ramallah l’enfant | Postcard form Palestine In Ramallah the child |
I have been fascinated, for many years now, and after repeated encounters, by the magical hold that the minor key -- more specifically, the third degree (or note) of this scale -- has over everyone’s ears*. Many composers use it, consciously or instinctively. The history of the utilization of this musical tool is a fascinating aspect of any culture’s artistic heritage. In fact, where this position is most effective is when it forms an interval of minor third, in relation to the tonic (the first note of the scale), ascending, from one to three, or descending, from three to one, with the former being the most prevalent.In this erudite and yet whimsical essay, Namjoo ranges widely, surveying a wide variety of music from traditional Persian music in a time of revolution to Cohen's "I'm Your Man."
This is basically a romantic interval, meaning that it has an aura of sanctity to it. Regardless of why or how, it invariably guides the listener towards a place of depth and meaning, which is also melancholic.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
An ideological revolution is undoubtedly a manifestation of romantic fury, and the third of minor is, likewise, a romantic position. It is used by both the victor, to denote his supreme righteousness, and by the conquered, to highlight the tragedy of her defeat.
Lenin Platz in Berlin
by Fadhil al-Azzawi
There in his square
he stood, arms stretched forward
as if begging the passers-by
to stop and hear him out.
He wore his ragged black coat
and had his grey cap
pulled over his eyes.
I saw him prophesy revolution
to workers and soldiers
and threaten the bourgeoisie with Hell.
He did not have a chair to sit on
so he remained standing
and waited forever.
When they arrested him
he was asleep and dreaming
on his high platform.
They cut through his hardened body
with an electric saw
and carried his marble head
with a rented forklift
to a storeroom of archaeological remains.
The workers covered his grassy square
with cement
afraid the thieves of the class struggle
would plunder its invaluable dust.
A lot of blood stuck to our shoes
as we walked the streets
following his coffin.
Dasvedanya!
Translated by the author
and Khaled Mattawa
Banipal, No. 6, Autumn 1999, p. 7
A thousand desires like these, each worth dying for
Many are filled, and yet as many remain.
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi is an unconventional triangle with no single hero dominating the narrative. It is an open-ended graph of shifting relationships between three friends, two men and a woman, and not a rigidly enclosed triangle of formulaic romance. Two abiding themes -- the play with time and the changing psychology of people over a given time -- surface in practically every film [Sudhir] Mishra has made and they come together with near perfection in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. He uses his Masters in Psychology to flesh out characters conceived in the round, a novelistic trait that film-makers so often overlook in the pursuit of the perfect image for its own sake.Mishra, who has a banner of Che Guevara in his living room, says: "He [Che] had a dream, and every dream which talks of a better future inspires me" (qtd. in Mohammed Wajihuddin, "Join the Fight," Screen 20 Apr. 2005).
So, it is time to meet the three protagonists as they graduate from a prestigious Delhi college and get inextricably drawn into their closely observed lives. Siddharth Tyabji (Kay Kay) is the emblematic representative of secular elitism: obviously the son of liberal Leftists who married across the communal divide. His dilemma is typical of his class, afflicted by the peculiar predicament of bearing a Muslim surname but unable to speak good Urdu. No one is more aware of this existential irony than Siddharth himself. He is the idealist looking for a cause in the ideological vacuum of a Delhi polluted by politicking. This is a Delhi society where class and education count more than ethnicity and language.
Geeta Rao (Chitrangada Singh) is the brilliant daughter of an eminent scientist, who, for all his eminence, clings to his South Indian conservative ways. Geeta has this innate ability to live easily in many worlds, a seeming epitome of the high-achieving modern woman. From the Telugu-speaking orthodox home complete with an extended family to the trendy set she hangs out with, and then on to Oxford for higher studies and finally to a strife-worn Bihar village... she traverses them all in the course of an eventful life, driven by her singular passion: Siddharth.
If Siddharth is the love of Geeta's life, Siddharth is in love with his great cause: bringing revolution to the parched land and disenfranchised peasants of Bihar. He gives up the cultured ease of Delhi to join the naxalites. His gentle, scholarly father watches helplessly -- he cannot approve but neither can he forbid, for he understands Siddharth's commitment to his chosen cause for which he is willing to pay any price.
Watching this drama from the sidelines is Vikram Malhotra (Shiny Ahuja). If his friends inhabit a rarefied realm of passionate idealism, Vikram is the point of identification. He is himself and yet, everyman. He is the typical small-town boy, desperate to acquire the cosmopolitan sheen that comes so naturally to the elegant Geeta and sophisticated Siddharth. Vikram is in a hurry to distance himself from his father's legacy -- a small-time, small-town politician who retains his idealism for which the son has nothing but contempt.
But watching the political process at first hand has given Vikram an invaluable lesson: how to spot, then court and win the politico and the party that is calling the shots at the moment, but without burning his bridges to previous denizens of the corridors of power. From artful survivor to smooth operator with high connections to independent purveyor of power is the fascinatingly familiar trajectory that Vikram's career takes. He knows everybody and apparently, everybody knows him too -- the more important part of the power transaction. Vikram's transformation from uncertain small-time guy to the assured, if oily, power-player, is wryly funny and precise in finding the satirical target.
For all his pragmatic survival skills that make him somebody over the years, Vikram is desperately in love with Geeta. And how this love stays with him -- even after Geeta returns from Oxford, becomes a journalist and endures an unhappy marriage and finally, throws in her lot with Siddharth, a man hunted by the police -- is Vikram's path to redemption. He is jealous of Siddharth at one level, specially when he finds out that Geeta has been using her journalistic cover to meet the fugitive activist and has an off-and-on affair with him. At another level, Vikram has a reluctant admiration for a man who has the courage of his convictions. When it comes to the crunch and Siddharth's life is in imminent danger, it is Vikram who uses his connections and comes to the aid of his one-time classmate and rival. (Maithili Rao "Mapping a Political Era," Frontline 22.5 26 Feb. -11 Mar. 2005)
Das EigentumThe sense of loss expressed by Braun is not his alone -- it is a "mass perception" that has elicited "a memory crisis" because state socialism was never given a proper burial:
Da bin ich noch: mein Land geht in den Westen.
KRIEG DEN HÜTTEN FRIEDE DEN PALÄSTEN.
Ich selber habe ihm den Tritt versetzt.
Es wirft sich weg und seine magre Zierde.
Dem Winter folgt der Sommer der Begierde.
Und ich kann bleiben wo der Pfeffer wächst.
Und unverständlich wird mein ganzer Text
Was ich niemals besaß wird mir entrissen.
Was ich nicht lebte, werd ich ewig missen.
Die Hoffnung lag im Weg wie eine Falle.
Mein Eigentum, jetzt habt ihrs auf der Kralle.
Wann sag ich wieder mein und meine alle.
Property
I'm still here, though my country's gone West.
PEACE TO THE PALACES AND DEVIL TAKE THE REST.
I gave it the elbow and heave-ho once myself.
Now it's giving away its negligible charms itself.
Winter is followed by a summer of guzzling.
But I remain, worrying at the root of all evil.
And my poem becomes increasingly puzzling,
To wit: what I never had is being filched.
I shall always mourn what never happened to me in person.
Hope lay across the path like a trap.
And that's my junk you've got your paws on.
Will it ever again be given me
To say mine and thereby mean the collective me.
"What I never had, is being torn away from me. What I did not live, I will miss forever." With these line from his drama Property (Das Eigentum, 1990), playwright Volker Braun renders his melancholic reaction to the disintegration of the German Democratic Republic. The GDR once prided itself as the tenth strongest world economy, but following the postcommunist turn, or Wende, most of its industries have been brought to a halt, and hundreds of thousands have found themselves jobless. The euphoria at the opening of the Berlin Wall dimmed within a few months, and a pall seemed to set in over the two Germanys, one which prompted many to reconsider the disintegration of state socialism. Whereas most Germans considered the communist project a failure, many others proceeded to mourn its passing, nonetheless. Paradoxically, what Braun's protagonist lost with the collapse of communism was the possible past he never really had.Is it any wonder that, in 2003, Wolfgang Becker's film Goodbye, Lenin! became one of the highest grossing German films in history?
The mass perception of loss has elicited a memory crisis in contemporary culture. While retrospective literary texts and artworks proliferate, museum exhibitions salvage and curate the wreckage of the GDR as if there were literally no tomorrow. A new German word has surfaced to describe this trend: Ostalgie, derived from Nostalgie, or nostalgia. The first syllable drops the letter n to become ost, the word for east. What remains signifies something like nostalgia for the "eastern times" of state socialism. Yet the nostalgic longing for some home that, perhaps, never really existed distinguishes itself from two other modes of memory that charge postcommunist culture: mourning and melancholia. . . . (Charity Scribner, "Left Melancholy," Loss: The Politics of Mourning, University of California Press, 2003, p. 300)
WELFARE QUEAN
by Wanda Coleman
red-faced you follow the loony white line to the blue door where the 7 a.m. wait runs fifty deep
you in your unwashed crown your snaggled teeth your aircraft-carrier hips you're snotting all over America this bad gin morning fizzle you've just run out of tissues so you use the flap of your grimy muumuu worn fax paper thin the truth you've tried to peddle did not feed or free you but has trapped yon in the dungeon of working ass poor doings
you fill out white forms in blue ink twixt curses and prayers, check the red boxes
the helpers you consult are underpaid automatons who smell of bureaucratic bugkill yet sniff down their noses at you maurauder your larcenous fingers filching their taxes you tinsel thugsta robbing them of phone time with sweethearts you pernicious promiscuous sloven spreading VD, AIDS and black males
of course you're allergic to work, would rather
sleep till noon watch the soaps the blabfests the shitcoms
(low self steam) stand on street corners swiggin' grape
or sippin' coonshine loudtalkin' gamblin' prostitutin'
blue brained under the white sheets, gasping to the throb warning code red
a cliché with a skin condition as
seen by those spaced-out heads/those probing amber eyes narrowed to amused slits denying your claim on the dream o purple mountains of prose charting your failures as you nut up under the thunder of blows your majesty that kinkknot on your psyche of course you're guilty of breaking illusion and taking up too much sun of course you're guilty of looting the nation's coffers of course you're lucky
to have survived past thirty five—you
bloodwart on the schnoz of Christ (Poems for the Nation: A Collection of Contemporary Political Poems, ed. Allen Ginsberg, et al., Seven Stories Press, 1999)
A VISION
This Iraq will reach the ends of the graveyard.
It will bury its sons in open country
generation after generation,
and it will forgive its despot.
It will not be the Iraq that once held the name.
And the larks will not sing.
So walk -- if you wish -- a long time.
And call -- if you wish --
on all the world's angels
and all its demons.
Call on the bulls of Assyria.
Call on a westward phoenix.
Call them
and through the haze of phantoms
watch for miracles to emerge
from clouds of incense.
Amman, 8/3/1997
(Saadi Youssef, Without an Alphabet, Without a Face, trans. Khaled Mattawa, Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2002)
Manifesto Issued from the Last Trench of the Revolution
Fight with us for a happier world
A world revolution in cities and countryside to create the Corporation of Free Society (Dh. M. M. Inc.), we declare we will fight for the following goals:
Free hotel rooms
Come sleep with us on collective beds
1.
2.
3.
4.
Fill in the blanks with whatever goals you wish. We trust you.Signed:
The Old Committee for the New Revolution
¿Como está, Puerto Rico,
tú de socio asociado en sociedad?
Al pie de cocoteros y guitarras,
bajo la luna y junto al mar,
¡qué suave honor andar del brazo,
brazo con brazo, del Tío Sam!
¿En qué lengua me entiendes,
en qué lengua por fin te podré hablar,
si en yes,
si en sí,
si en bien,
si en well
si en mal,
si en bad, si en very bad?
Juran los que te matan
que eres feliz . . . ¿Será verdad?
Arde tu frente pálida,
la anemia en tu mirada logra un brillo fatal;
masticas una jerigonza
medio española, medio slang;
de un empujón te hundieron en Corea,
sin que supieras por quién ibas a pelear,
si en yes,
si en sí,
si en bien,
si en well,
si en mal,
si en bad, si en very bad!
Ay, yo bien conozco a tu enemigo,
el mismo que tenemos por acá,
socio en la sangre y el azúcar,
socio asociado en sociedad;
United States and Puerto Rico,
es decir New York City with San Juan,
Manhattan y Borinquen, soga y cuello,
apenas nada más . . .
No yes,
no sí,
no bien,
no well,
sí mal,
sí bad, sí very bad.
Cuando me veo y toco
yo, Juan sin Nada no más ayer,
y hoy Juan con Todo,
y hoy con todo,
vuelvo los ojos, miro,
me veo y toco
y me pregunto cómo ha podido ser.
Tengo, vamos a ver,
tengo el gusto de andar por mi país,
dueño de cuanto hay en él,
mirando bien de cerca lo que antes
no tuve ni podía tener.
Zafra puedo decir,
monte puedo decir,
ciudad puedo decir,
ejército decir,
ya míos para siempre y tuyos, nuestros,
y un ancho resplandor
de rayo, estrella, flor.
Tengo, vamos a ver,
tengo el gusto de ir
yo, campesino, obrero, gente simple,
tengo el gusto de ir
(es un ejemplo)
a un banco y hablar con el administrador,
no en inglés,
no en señor,
sino decirle compañero como se dice en español.
Tengo, vamos a ver,
que siendo un negro
nadie me puede detener
a la puerta de un dancing o de un bar.
O bien en la carpeta de un hotel
gritarme que no hay pieza,
una mínima pieza y no una pieza colosal,
una pequeña pieza donde yo pueda descansar.
Tengo, vamos a ver,
que no hay guardia rural
que me agarre y me encierre en un cuartel,
ni me arranque y me arroje de mi tierra
al medio del camino real.
Tengo que como tengo la tierra tengo el mar,
no country,
no jailáif,
no tennis y no yacht,
sino de playa en playa y ola en ola,
gigante azul abierto democrático:
en fin, el mar.
Tengo, vamos a ver,
que ya aprendí a leer,
a contar,
tengo que ya aprendí a escribir
y a pensar
y a reír.
Tengo que ya tengo
donde trabajar
y ganar
lo que me tengo que comer.
Tengo, vamos a ver,
tengo lo que tenía que tener.
Monsieur Dupont te llama inculto,
porque ignoras cuál era el nieto
preferido de Víctor Hugo.
Herr Müller se ha puesto a gritar,
porque no sabes el día
(exacto) en que murió Bismarck.
Tu amigo Mr. Smith,
inglés o yanqui, yo no lo sé,
se subleva cuando escribes shell.
(Parece que ahorras una ele,
y que además pronuncias chel.)
Bueno ¿y qué?
Cuando te toque a ti,
mándales decir cacarajícara,
y que dónde está el Aconcagua,
y que quién era Sucre,
y que en qué lugar de este planeta
murió Martí.
Un favor:
que te hablen siempre en español.
Sir,The poem is dense with allusions to a number of Nicolás Guillén's poems, so you can better saver its staging of rich imaginary dialogues between two Caribbean poets if you know Guillén's work well. If you are not familiar with Guillén's poetry, take a look at my notes on "Word Making Man."
not in ‘Sir’
but compañero
as you wd prefer it in hispañol
i have not yet been to cuba
& do not know the language of yr oradores
& as you said
‘some of us are champions
from the provinces, others
lo son olímpicos.’ & some of us
are nothing -- you will forgive me if i quote you again --
‘not even oradores’
but i know that we are watching in a long circle for the dawn
& that the ruling class does not wait at bus stops
& i know that we are watching in a long circle for the fire
& that our compradores do not ladle soup out of the yabba
in camagüey
ave maría
católica
silversmith turned silverfish. your father
in the leaves of the spanish classics. metallic needlework
in a tropic of paper. turblethumb thimbleprint journalist
who divined the omens of martí
when he was shot -- fusilamiento
you became a snake
circling circling circling renewing yr cycle of certainty
& you awoke to sleepy horses
sleepy snocone vendors
to hazy drunkards staggering to their homes
you tripped you cried you stumbled
on the dreams of those far-off days:
nicotine lópez, yr pharmacist & friend
the town clerk cores and the cop who died his name like caanan
what’s his name?
& serafin toledo. blacksmith steel-lightning tailor
‘& the school desk w/ the pen-knife scars
beneath a sky of fireflies & stars’
& we all learn
guitarra
we all learn
mayombe-bombe-mayombé
mayombe-bombe-mayombé
that one does not kill a brother
that one does not kill a brother
that one does not kill a brother
& look how Sensemayá he is dead!
*
Now we rock-steady safely in the orisha of our dreams
& yr name has become the sunsum of our ancestors
to the pale salons of lippi song you brought the son
w/ the broad boa of the conquistadore violin you bent the tree
jack johnson kid chocolate muhammad ali
them jazzers w/ cow-punches in their smiles
the stylish patent-leather shoes, the creaking
downstairs down the stares from broadway stretching
out ‘its snout, its moist enormous mout
to lick & glut upon our canefields’ vital blood’
black little rock. the mau mau. emmett till
guevara & the beaten skulls of biko and lumumba
you have whispered it all. you have uttered it all
coriolan of blood. plankton of melt & plangent syllables
sunrise lucumi sparkle
against yr teeth of joy
sus dientes de júbilo
amerika laughs
west indies west indies west indies ltd
*
but suddenly in the night of possibility
it turns to the wall in its creaking bed of dollars
west indies west indies west indies unlimited
& yr voice rises like the moon
above the day of pigs. above the choruses of
who is it? who is it not?
the negro
who is it? who is it not?
my hunger
who is it? who is it not?
i&i talkin to ya
& the sea between us yields its secrets
silver into pellables into sheets of sound
that bear our pain & spume & salt & coltrane
saying
xango
‘no
not no
not bad
not bad, not velly bad’
but
yes
sí yes
bien
sí well
sí velly well
so that we learn w/you the pleasure
of walking w/our roots across the country
owners herein of all there is to see
owners herein of all there is to see
of what our hands encompass as we dream
so that together we say wind
& understand its history of ghosts
together we say fire
& again there is a future in those sparks
together, comrade, friend
we say this is our land & know at last at last it is our home
now mine forever & so yours, amigo
ours
‘w/ the vast splendour of the sunshine & the sunflower & the stars’
