BRASS PETALS

arzitekt:

The Diary of Beirut Under Seige (1982). I discovered it while reading the book Memory and Architecture by Eleni Bastea

My era tells me bluntly:
You do not belong.
I answer bluntly:
I do not belong,
I try to understand you.
Now I am a shadow
Lost in the forest
Of a skull

I’m on my feet, the wall is a fence —
     The distance shrinks, a window recedes.
Daylight is a thread
Snipped by my lungs to stitch the evening.

All I said about my life and death
Recurs in the silence 
Of the stone under my head …

Am I full of contradictions?  That is correct.
     Now I am a plant.  Yesterday, when I was between fire
          and water
     I was a harvest.
     Now I am a rose and live coal,
     Now I am the sun and the shadow
     I am not a god.
Am I full of contradictions?  That is correct …

The moon always wears
A stone helmet
To fight its own shadows.

The door of my house is closed.
     Darkness is a blanket:
          A pale moon comes with
          A handful of light
          My words fall
          To convey my gratitude.

The killing has changed the city’s shape — This rock
     is bone
     This smoke people breathing.

We no longer meet,
Rejection and exile keep us apart.
The promises are dead, space is dead,
Death alone has become our meeting point.

He shuts the door
Not to trap his joy
… But to free his grief.

A newscast
     About a woman in love
     Being killed,
     About a boy being kidnapped
     And a policeman growing into a wall.

Whatever comes it will be old
     So take with you anything other than this madness — get ready
          To stay a stranger …

They found people in sacks:
     One without a head
     One without a tongue or hands
     One squashed
     The rest without names.
Have you gone mad?  Please.
     Do not write about these things.

You will see
     Say his name
     Say I painted his face
     Stretch your hand to him
     Or walk like any man
     Or smile
     Or say I was once sad
You will see
     There is no homeland …

There may come a time when you’ll be
     Accepted to live deaf and dumb, and perhaps
They’ll let you mumble: death,
               Life, resurrection —
     And peace be upon you.

He wears battles uniform, struts in a mantle of ideas.
A merchant — he does not sell clothes, he sells people.

They took him to a ditch and burnt him.
     He was not a murderer, he was a boy.
     He was not …
                 He was a voice
Vibrating, scaling the steps of space.
And now he’s fluting in the air.

Darkness.
The earth’s trees have become tears on heaven’s cheeks.
An eclipse in this place.
Death snapped the city’s branch and the friends departed.

You do not die because you are created or because you have a body
     You die because you are the face of the future.

The flower that tempted the wind to carry its perfume
                                                                                   Died yesterday.

The sun no longer rises
It covers its feet with straw
And slips away …