Palestinian Poetry Blogging

Other Barbarian Will Come

Other barbarians will come. The emperor's wife will be abducted. Drums
will beat loudly. Drums will beat so that horses will leap over human bodies from the Aegean sea to the Dardanelles. So why should we be concerned?
What do our wives have to do with horse racing?

The emperor's wife will be abducted. Drums will beat loudly and other barbarians will come. Barbarians fill the cities' emptinesses, slightly
higher than the sea, mightier than the sword in a time of madness. So why
should we be concerned? What do our children have to do with the children of this impudence?

Drums will beat loudly and other barbarians will come. The emperor's wife will be taken from his bedroom. From his bedroom he will launch a military
assault to return his bedmate to his bed. Why should we be concerned? What do fifty thousand victims have to do with this brief marriage?

Can Homer be born after us...and myths open their doors to the throng?

From Fewer Roses (1986) by Mahmoud Darwish

Translated by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché