Diary of the Lost King
Ahmed Abu Ridan / Jordan
Translated by Munir Mezyed
Inflamed, I divide supper's provisions
With my companion.
Since maybe the guilty will repent,
I will try to gain back my reign.
And the earth embraces us at night.
Who will devour these illusions in my head?
Then the howling of wolves becomes words.
Perhaps, if I awaken,
This space will narrow
And while escaping,
The small fire in the desert will blaze.
I confide to my confidant,
Like a poem the heart recites
Verse by verse,
That the road is too long
And Pleiades dies at night's end.
So shall I be satisfied by traveling and death?
I reveal to them the passion of my vengeance,
Thus, my companion dozes highly pleased.
The crackling of fire explodes in my chest
Destroying a broken dream
About childhood, poetry and pretty women.
Memories erupt within me
As a nap had taken me
From the most delightful time of my life
To what passed in the arid years.
I carry the sadness of the poem,
Climbing its lengthened shade,
To open a window broken by autumn's winds,
Thus making it a passageway
Where I release a flood of emotions.
I mutter, agitated as a thin cloud in blowing wind,
"Beware of what is coming."
After the storm an awful feeling comes over me.
You are remiss for not knowing
What I experienced in my life;
That I traveled from north to south,
Finding nothing but grief
Similar to Jacob's sorrow,
When Joseph was thrown in the well to die.
My friend cries.
Now the camels are ready to move
On sandy roads,
In the observance of my exile
Leaving behind everyone I know.
I vow I will be avenged
By my Father's blood.
He prevented me
From reciting poems,
And expelled me from the tribe
As the deposed.
When the sword killed the interloper,
I was baptized in blood and wine,
In the shadow of a goddess who despised me.
I will gouge all eyes,
Making his memory
A laughingstock.
After the instrument of destruction
Stops the intruder,
Who will separate the sword from its sheath,
Then fill the wound with salt until it is cured?
I will leave homeless,
My nourishment the Poem,
The sorrow of the poor, my camel,
And the innocent who have been sacrificed
As woven, silky borders.
Since I was an inquisitive child,
I have known
I would be killed!
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