These poems come from the collection The Screams of War, a collection of poetry by Akram Alkatreb — translated by Jonas Elbousty — that speaks to a post-2011 Syria. It’s out now from Seagull Books.
The Statues of Midday
By Akram Alkatreb
Translated by Jonas Elbousty
My friends are the brothers of darkness,
statues of midday,
nothing left from their features
beside the smell of the hand extended to the waiter
behind the coffee shop’s window.
A harsh hand, frozen from the cold,
flaunting,
or blinking like a tearful eye.
Do You Know How Much We Love You?
By Akram Alkatreb
Translated by Jonas Elbousty
We are your sons, and we are leaving the world.
Do you know how much we love you
and that you are about to die?
Your body was hanging in the air for ten thousand years.
Are you still alive?
So we can meet by chance in the history books
that praise kings from the Stone Age?
Then you lose your birds, your soul, your trees, and your
mother tongue.
Do you know how much we love you?
The History Of Emotion
By Akram Alkatreb
Translated by Jonas Elbousty
I left all of Damascus at your door.
The moon will not rise on the roofs, for the children of
my neighbourhood are laying grapes
under the August sun,
then they take you to their dreams.
I must wait another twenty years to teach them the
lesson of regret.
Each of us wants to steal your heartbreak.
We desire you like we desire the bread sold in front of
shops.
And we follow the smell of your robe, which reveals
your breasts in front of the children,
transforming them into trees and sunflowers.
You are taking off the buttons of the springs, and with a
parched mouth
we run towards you to discover the origin of writing
and of reading,
and we try to sleep next to you in bed
but your lover does not want us in the house.
Akram Alkatreb is a Syrian poet, residing in New Jersey. He has worked as a literary critic and journalist for over two decades, with numerous contributions appearing in many major Arabic literary magazines and newspapers. He has published six poetry collections in Arabic, and one in Spanish.
Jonas Elbousty is a writer, literary translator, and academic, whose latest book is Tales of Tangier.