Raed Anis Al-Jishi

Raed Anis Al-Jishi (Saudi Arabia)

(poet, translator; Qateef-Saudi Arabia) has published one novel, 9 volumes of poems in Arabic, one in French and one, Bleeding Gull: Look, Feel, Fly, in English. Alongside a career as a writer, he teaches high school chemistry. He is a feminist and human rights activist, and works on issues involving children and literacy.

 

FİNAL ACT

 

In the theatre of time I stand crucified on the cross of my tongue

watching birds as they fall on my song

 

And steal breadcrumbs and wine

that grow from my soulful melody.

 

What could meaning hide for me

if the bars of its rhythms are rooted in the rhyme’s soul?

 

I see nails pierce through my hands,

and yet my dreams hammer back.

 

I am a stranger carving out the meaning of home,

recollected from memories my footsteps have known.

 

This home that lends its marks on my skin

and prints thorns on branches of my veins.

 

A cooing carved, while clouds witness

the towering dance in my lungs.

 

Water escaped the land to pour upon me

and drench the cracks of my murmur.

 

Some words can’t grow without a body

unless slain in the temple of description.

 

What if I didn’t listen to my heart?

My cross is all I carry with me

 

This heart I bear on my back bent

serene with my songs into the woods.

 

My verse metrics sound the storm in my blood

against this world of dust that dulls the spirit.

 

I hear string echoes calling for the uprising

within the confines of my time and space.

 

I’m a free soul, and my soul tortures me,

likely to stitch my lips into silence.

 

Yet my word will take me among

the scented stream of flowers gilding my guillotine.

 

Only poems soothe my wanderlust

in one poised moment.

 

Two raptors surround me: my mind & my faith.

A whispering angel with broken wings

 

Walked seven times around my remains

ringing my hums in every round.

 

I will break the pink stone inside my chest

if she leaves me in a valley with no direction.

 

And I will cut the oxygen of love,

if she tries to break my illusions.

 

Translated by Amira Ramah

 

 

A DANCE OF BULLETS

رقص الرصاص

 

If out of passion I strained my heart,

it doesn’t matter.

You crossed each alley

of my inner streets –

mirrored the dream

running through my veins,

and from my garden,

plucked,

the love grown

from a pear tree.

 

If I offer you roses

distilled from my blood

and if, in your honor

I play the anthem of salvation

with my heart’s beats,

it doesn’t matter.

 

Home,

it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter if

all you could offer me is

a dance of bullets.

 

Translated by Amira Ramah