A Body

by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

The body of a bird in your mouth
breathing songs.
Raw light spills from your eyes,
utterly naked. 

You must breach the horizon, once,
in order to wake up.
You must open window after window.
You must support the walls.
 
I let alphabets cling to me
as I climb the thread of language
between myself and the world.
I muster crowds in my mouth:
suspended between language and the world,
between the world and the alphabets.

I let my head
listen to the myth,
to all sides praising each other.
And I shout at the winds from the top of a mountain.

Why does my tongue tell me to climb this far?
What is the distance between my voice and my longing?
What is there?

A body transcending my body.
A body exiled by desire.
A body sheltered by the wind.

The literal translation of this poem was made by Atef Alshaer

The final translated version of the poem is by The Poetry Translation Workshop

Comments

  1. December 7th, 2011 at 2:56 pm

    baha says:

    thanks a lot for this valuable work...

  2. September 5th, 2011 at 3:16 am

    Lovindark says:

    I really like this website =)

    It helps my English and Arabic

  3. August 18th, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    HAFIS MOHAMMED says:

    I LIKE THIS LINK .

    ITS VERY USEFUL FOR THE STUDENTS AND THE RESEARCHERS TO FEED UPON THIS VALUABLE COLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIC POETRIES.I WOULD LIKE TO BRING IN NOTICE THAT YOU HAVE ALSO PROVIDED THE TRANSLATIONS OF  POEMS WHICH GIVE THEM AN EXTRA TASTE OF FAVOUR.

    I EXTEND MY SINCERE GRATITUDE TOWARDS ALL THE HELPING HANDS BEHIND THIS GLORIOUS WORK.


© Poetry Translation Centre 2004-2012