Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account of everything,
there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some others;
I've distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to accept them.
I've kept company with music for a second only and now I no longer know what to think of suicide,
for if I ever want to part from myself, the exit is on this side and, I add mischievously, the entrance, the re-entrance is on the other.
You see what you still have to do.
Hours, grief, I don't keep a reasonable account of them;
I'm alone, I look out of the window;
there is no passerby, or rather no one passes.
You don't know this man?
It's Mr.Same.
May I introduce Madam Madam? And their children.
Then I turn back on my steps, my steps turn back too,
but I don't know know exactly what they turn back on.
I consult a schedule; the names of the towns have been replaced by the names of the people who have been quite close to me.
Shall I go to A, return to B, change at X?
Yes, of course I'll change at X.
Provided I don't miss the connection with boredom!
There we are: boredom, beautiful parallels,
ah!
how beautiful the parallells are under God's perpendicular.
Sometimes words are all we need,sometimes we take things for granted. I am Welsh and I know my land. I know how far my border stretches, I am free. Then there is Palestine, a place where innocent women and children have been caught in a political, religious conflict for many a year.
Thousands left homeless by bombing, unable to repair physically or mentally by a continued embargo of food, materials, medical help - by Zionist oppression. This state of being still continues, broken in recent days only by the extreme efforts of humanists on convoy after a months struggle to reach the beleagered. Surely the humanist in all races, religions should transcend any political, aggressive stance of any nation against another.
Countries cannot be made out of imaginary sands. Borders create unnecessary demands on the innocent.The Palestinians now refuse their own destruction and drawing some kind of hope from universal truth continue to defy and deny the illegality of another countries oppressive spirit - this is why their culture continues to endure. The Palestinians have been under siege long enough now. They have not been silenced. I understand there resiliant cries when faced with walls and silence. There have been many crimes committed in many names. In spite of this the importance of poetry, music and literature to the Palestinian sense of identity should never be underestimated.
Personally I have always been able to walk free and have been uncensored in the words that I have been able to use or read. I have not experienced forms of oppression and the humiliation. I am still able to say I live in a land called Wales, I am not forced to live my life in enforced exile. My country is not currently under military occupation, so I shout viva Palestine with no apologies.
The 1970s saw the emergence of probably Palestine's greatest poet, Mahmoud Darwish, whose poem Identity Card is one of the most powerful Palestinian anti-oppression poems ever written. Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa, Western Galilee in a village that was occupied and later razed to the ground by the Israeli army. Because they had misused the official Israeli census, he and his family were considered 'internal refugees' pr 'present absent aliens'' His rich poems also speak of longing, dispossession and exile. A cosmopolitan man he cited Rimbaud and Ginsberg as influences. A writer of over thirty volumes of poetry , he became to be regarded as potent Palestinian symbol and spokesman for Arabs opposition to the state of Israel.He rejected antisemitism as we all should saying " The accusation is that I hate Jews. Its not comfortable that they show me as a devil and an enemy of Israel. I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don't hate Jews ". He wrote in Arabic but was also fluent in English, French and Hebrew. He believed strongly that peace was one day goin to be achievable, he did not give up hope. His work celebrated diversity and a world currently threatened by globalization. His poems were published widely across the Arab World an essential breath on the Palestinian experience. He was awarded numerous awards for his literary talents and when he died he was buried in Ramallah with thousands of Palestinians coming out to honor and mourn his departure. The following are a selection of this Palestinians hymns to resistance who despite his harsh climate once said "Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality that we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile. The sarcasm is not only related to today's reality but also to history. History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor. "
IDENTITYCARD
RECORD!
I am an Arab
and my identity card is number fifty
thousand
I have eight children
and the ninth
is coming in midsummer
Record
I am an Arab
employed with fellow workers
at a quarry
I have eight children
to get them bread
garments
and books
from the rocks-
I do not supplicate
charity
at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself
at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?
Record!
I am an Arab
without a name - without title
in a patient country
with people enraged
My roots-
were entrenched before the birth of time
and before the opening of the eras
before the olive trees, athe
pines and grass
My father
descends from the family of the plow
not from a privileged class
And my grandfather-
was a farmer
neither well-bred, nor well-born
And my house-
is like a watchman's hut
This is my status
Does it satisfy you?
I have a name but no title
RECORD
I am an Arab
The color of my hair is black
The color of my eyes is brown
And my distinctive features:
The head dress hatta wi'gal
And the hand is solid like a rock
my favourite meal
is olive oil and thyme
And my address:
A village isolated and deserted
where the streets have no names
and the men work in the fields and quarries
They like socialism
Will you be angry?
RECORD!!!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards
of my ancestors
and the land
which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left us with those rocks
so will the State take them
as it has been said ?
Therefore
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate man
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware beware of my hunger
and my anger!!
THE PROMISE OF LIBERTY
I walk the streets of the West Bank
With out fear, though the pirates drank
My spilt blood. My feet are torn,
Swollen by a dagger- rooted in the land
Where we walk, band after bold band!
We are a soft breeze to our fiends,
And gunpowder against hostile trends:
We march, and act, and we never sleep,
Because we have promises to keep:
Freedom beckons along the horizons afar,
Leading our footsteps, like the polar star.
We spare no effort, sacrifice or toil
Till we celebrate the liberty of our soil.
WE JOURNEY TOWARDS A HOME
We journey towards a home not of our flesh. Its chestnut trees are not of our bones.
Its rocks are not like goats in the mountain hymn. The pebbles eyes are not lilies.
We journey towards a home that does not halo our heads with a special sun.
Mythical women applaud us. A sea for us, a sea against us.
When water and wheat are not at hand, eat our love and drink our tears...
There are mourning scarves for poets. A row of marble statues will lift our voice.
And an urn to keep the dust of time away from our souls. Roses for us and agaist us.
You have your glory, we have ours. Of our home we only see the unseen:
our mystery.
Glory is ours: a throne carried on feet torn by roads that led to every home
but our own!
The soul must recognise itself in its very soul, or die here.
translated by Munir Akasha
THE PASSPORT
They did not recognise me in the shadows
That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognise me,
Ah... Don't leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognise me
Don't leave me pale like the moon!
All the birds that followed my palm
to the door of the distant airport
All the wheat fields
All the prisons
All the white tombstones
All the barbed boundaries
All the waving handkerchiefs
All the eyes
were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport
Stripped of my name and identity?
On a soil I nourished with my own hands?
Today Jacob cried out
Filling the sky:
Don't make an example of me again!
Oh, gentlemen, Prophets,
Don't ask the trees for their names
Don't ask the valley who their mother is
From my forehead bursts the sword of light
And from my hand springs the waterof the river
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my passport!
THE PRISON CELL
It is possible
It is possible at least sometimes
It is possible especially now
To ride a horse
Inside a prison cell
And run away...
It is possible for prison walls
To dissapear
For the cell to become a distant land
Without frontiers
What did you do with the walls?
I gave them back to the rocks.
And what did you do with the ceiling?
I turned it into a saddle.
And your chain?
I turned it into a pencil.
The prison guard got angry
he put an end to the dialoque.
He said he didn't care for poetry,
And bolted the door of my cell.
He came back to see me
in the morning.
He shouted at me:
Where did all this water come from?
I bought it from the Nile.
And the trees?
From the orchards of Damascas
And the music?
From my heartbeat.
The prison guard got mad.
He put an end to my dialoque.
He said he didn't like my poetry,
And bolted the door of my cell.
But he returned in the evening:
Where did this moon come from?
From the nights of Baghdad.
And the wine?
From the vineyards of Algiers.
And this freedom?
From the chain you tied me with last night.
The prison guard grew so sad...
He begged me to give him back
His freedom.
Translated by Ben Bennai
LESSON FROM THE KAMA SUTRA ( WAIT FOR HER)
Wait for her with an azure cup. Wait for her in the evening at the spring, among perfumed roses.
Wait for her with the patience of a horse trained for mountains. Wait for her with the distinctive, aesthetic taste of a prince. Wait for her with the seven pillows of cloud. Wait for her with strands of womanly incense wafting. Wait for her with the manly scent of sandalwood on horseback. Wait for her and do not rush. If she arrives late, wait for her. If she arrives early, wait for her. Do not frighten the birds in her braided hair. Take her to the balcony to watch the moon drowning in milk. Wait for her and offer her water before wine. Do not glance at the twin partridges sleeping on her chest. Wait and gently touch her hand as she sets a cup on marble. As if you are carrying the dew for her, wait. Speak to her as a flute would to a frightened violin string, As if you knew what tomorrow would bring. Wait, and polish the night for her ring by ring. Wait for her until the night speaks to you thus: There is no one alive but the two of you. So take her gently to the death you so desire, and wait.
Dennis Brutus who died just after Christmas was a poet and former inmate with Nelson Mandela at Robben Island in the mid -1960s, a fierce campaigner against South Africa's racist apartheid regime, after apartheid's wall came crumbling down he carried on campaigning for social justice and freedom through his poems untill his dying breaths . A prolific poet and inspiration to thousands,in his lifetime he produced over 12 collections of passionate verse. Another humanist light has been switched of.
THERE WILL COME A TIME
There will come a time
There will come a time we believe
when the shape of the planet
and the divisions of the land
will be less important
we will be caught in a glow of friendship
a red star of hope
will illuminate our lives
a star of hope
a star of freedom.
Well it's the time of year where once again I contemplate sobriety, never again I cry, but with my shaking hand wavering thought i'd quickly post this little ode to drunkeness, still searching out the hidden meanings between words, salute
People are sober as cemetery stones!
They should be drunk!
We should all be drunk!
Look, it's nearly night time and the sober news
Comes dribbling out of television sets -
It should be drunken news,
If only it were drunken news!
Only festivals to report and the sombre death
of one ancient daisy.
It's time toget drunk, surely it's time?
Little else matters;
Sober the years twist you up,
Sober the days crawl by ugly and hunched and your soul-
it becomes like a stick insect!
I've spent so much time in the company of sober and
respectable men,
And I learned how each sober thought is an obstacle laid
between us and paradise.
We need to wash their words away,
we need to be drunk, to dance in the certainty
that drunkeness is right.
So come on, let's get drunk,
let's instigate something!
Let's get drunk on whatever we want-
on songs, on sex, on dancing,
on tulip juice or meditations,
it doesn't matter what-
but no soberness, not that!
It's obscene!
When everything you deluded yourself you wanted has gone
you can get drunk on the loss,
when you've rid yourself of the need for those things back
then you will be light,
you will be truly drunk.
For everything not tied down is drunk-
boats and balloons, aeroplanes and stars-
all drunk.
And the morning steams with hangovers,
and the clouds are giddy
and beneath them swallows swoop, drunk,
and flowers stagger about on their stems
drunk on the wind.
Everything in Heaven's too drunk to remember hell.
And the best mosters are drunken monsters,
trembling and dreamig of beanstalks
too high for sober Jack to climb,
and the best tightrope walkers are drunken tightrope walkers,
a bottle in each hand they stagger above the net made
of the audience's wish for them to fall.
Drunk, I've navigated my way home by the blurry stars,
I've been drunk on the future's possibilities
and drunk on its certainties,
and on all its improbabilities I've been so drunk
that logic finally surrendered.
So come on
no matter what time it is
no matter where it is
in the room you hate
in the green ditch bloated with spring,
beside the river that flows
with its million little tributaries
into a million little graves
it doesn't matter-
it's time to get drunk.
If one night of oblivion can wash away
all the petty heartache then fine,
reach for the ancient medicine.
And if you wake from drunkeness
don't think too much about it,
don't stop to think.
Don't bother asking clocks what time it is,
don't bother asking anything that escapes from time
what time it is,
for it will tell you as it runs,
leap-frogging over all obstacles,
Why idiot, don't you know? It's time to get drunk!
Time not to be the prisoner of boredom
or cemetery stones!
Be drunk on what you want,
Be drunk on anything, anything at all
but please-
Understand the true meaning of drunkeness!
FROM:-Grave Gossip,
Brian Patten;
Unwin Paperbacks 1979
Oil and water Never blend- One stands up, One beneath.
"Like a gorilla And a monkey Claiming oneness,"- Look closer- " The monkey is monkey And the gorilla gorilla."
That's not me. In captivity I eat banana, In the wild savagery.
Contained Leaving my roots, I was a goat. I had three kids. You - a lion - Had just one, Still devouring mine. I replenish my kind, You wait your turn. I trespass, Being a protectorate, Not Knowing So many distant borders - What's the difference? Not deserving the treatment.
Then I skip, Learning to jump, Like doctor Jack Mapanje The queue staring at me - I don't have a face If that's all I am, As if my mother abused drugs.
Feeling sorry for me With vouchers as in chids lay, Buying food from Tesco As the fat lady Questions my strangeness And witnesses point a finger I thought I was a scarecrow. So be it.
Clarify intent, Teach truth in history, Then they may Not laugh at me. Then you ask, What's my first language? Ask my granny, Oh no, the generation's gone, Still confused Which language they spoke. I thought I am Portugese Never owning a plantation Of my own, Then I thought I am German, Then I realised The English kicked The Kingdom out.
They said I was French - Oh no, Marie! le bread!
Thanks to the queen- Queen Victoria that is - I was given the name Charles. Rumours say he was the great. Maybe I'm a Mormon Tracking a family tree.
Communism never thrived, Blaming the heat. Here in Wales Starting with " Bore da ", Still wondering - A first language? Studying English, An adopted tonque, Through life - What makes you think? I know mylanguage, Existing passively, As others came And others left, Surprised why I speak in tonques.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY DESTROY ALL BORDERS TURN HATE INTO LOVE Welsh Consortium for Refugees and Asylum seekers Brynglas Bungalow Heol Brynglas Newport NP20 5QU
01633 855095
HAFAN BOOKS
was established in 2003 by Eric Ngalle Charles, Tom Cheesman and Sylvie Hoffmann, in order to provide an outlet in Wales for the creativity of refugees and asylum seekers, and their supporters; to to educate the public; and to raise money for charities assistind refugees and asylum seekers. www.hafan.org tel: 07736408064
Fe ddeallwn wenoliad, briwsion ar fwrdd yr ardd, yn llygad y drws. Deallwn eu llwgu, eu hawydd i dorri bara a ni.
Ac onid adar ydym ninnau, adar nid o'r unlliw? Eto'r entrych yw'r encil, unigedd yn pigo'r pridd.
Ac ym mhob ffurfafen mae mudo, cymysgu a'r ddaear am nodded. Fforddoloion ar aden, eu clwyfo gan hanes, yn chwilio o'r newydd, nyth, man gwyn i orffwys.
Yr adar, a'u plu cynness? Dylent gofio yr heb-ogion, yn seri'r tir, yn chwilio'r tir comin.
Un wen, a wna wanwyn, un wnnol yn llunio'r haf.
Bird we understand, spend crumbs in garden, at back-door's eye; undertand their need to break bread with us.
And are we not birds who don't always flock together? The sky a high refuge, lonely, knowing we'll land, meet beak's needs, at heartbreak
And in every firmament migrators mingle, mixing heaven and earth for shelter, wayfarers a-wing, histories' hurted, seeking anew a nest, a fair resting-place.
So those birds, warm-feathered, should remember the withouters scouring the soil in search of common ground.
Mae'n digwydd yn anorfod, fel dwr yn dod o hyd i'w lefel, ond bob tro yr agoraf lawlyfr teithio 'rwy'n hwylio heibio'r prifddinasoedd a'r golygfeydd, ac yn tyrchu i stydoedd cefn diolwg y mynegai, a chael fy mod yn Ffrainc, yn Llydaw; yn Seland Newydd, Maori; yn y Unol Daleithiau - yn dibynnu ar ba ran- 'rwy'n Navajo, Yn Cazun, neu'n ddu
Y fi yw'r Cymro Crwydr; yn Iddew ymhob man. Heblaw, wrth gwrs, am Israel. Yno, 'wy'n Baleteiniad.
Mae'n rhyw fath o gymhlethdod, mae'n rhaid, fy mod yn codi'r grachen ar fy psyche fel hyn. Mi dybiaf weithiau sut beth a fyddai i fynd i un o'r llefydd hyn a jyst mwynhau.
Ond na, wrth grwydro cyfandiroedd y cyfrolau yr un yw'r cwestiwn ym mhorthladd pb pennod: "Dinas neis. 'Nawr blw nae'r geto?"
It happens inevitably, like water finding its level: evey time I open a trvel book, I sail past the capitlal cities, the sights, and dive straight into the backstreets of the index to find that in France, Im Breton; in New Zealand, Maori; in the U.S.A.- depending on which part- I'm Navajo, Cajun, or black.
I'm the wandering Welshman I'm Jewish everywhere. Except, of course, in Israel. There, I'm Palestinian.
It's some kind of a complex, I know, that makes me pick this scab on my psyche. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to go to these places and just enjoy.
No, as I wander the continents of the guidebooks, whatever chapter may be my destination, the question's always the same when I arrive: "Nice city. Now where's the ghetto?" d
Living paradise of flowers, land of honey, land of violet and blossoms, land rich in crops, land of nut-bushes, and dear land of the hills, John Machreth Rees ( MACHRETH)
HEATHER FLOWERS
Gaily they grow, the quiet throng, fair gems of the realm of sun and wind, the hanging bells of the high crags, flowers of the rocks, like cups of honey.
Eliseus Williams (Eifion Wyn) 1867-1926
THE POLE STAR
A lamp are you, above all stars of night, to guide sailors in the dusk; lovely is your colour, sweet maid, standing in the doorway of the pole.
Colsett Colsett (Carnelian) 1834-1910
NIGHTFALL
Silence by the dark night; Eryri's mountains veiled by mist; The sun in the bed of brine, The moon silvering the water.
Walter Davies (Gwalter Mechain) 1761-1849
EAVES
Giving, while the rain lasts, soft noises Like a thousand being milked; When the roof's thick with ice, under it, strange teats appear.
Ellis Jones, 20th century
THE BELOVED
A fair cheek under a merry blue eye, two brows Under a lattice of yellow curls; For sure the sons of heaven were called To splinter the gold for her hair.
David Roberts (Dewi Havhesp) 1831-1884
AN OLD WOMAN
Scant and straggling her yellow hair, from her lip The bee's honey has fled; Withered and poor is the white skin, Briars insted of roses.
D.Gwenallt Jones (Gwenallt) 1899-1968
THE HOUR OF SLEEP
The hour of sleep has come silently, the hour of forgetfulness, over the ranks of being, A drowsy hour on the heavy shore Of the sea men call mortality.
I have seen a court, and a dozen courts, And no court have I seen as gracious As the court I love for its chieftain's sake, Not weak is my praise, like Celligwen: Heaven's bounty on earth in Bachelldref, Where there is a revel each Christmas, A crowd of kinsmen, a lake of liquor, Bright the honour of Meurig's homeland, Many a minstel and merry fiddler, And much the mirth on a polished floor, And a sound of strigs, a deluge of drinks, And the constant cadence of singing, And a red-hued lance of Cadwaladr's line, A blood-gushing blade, promise of meat, And minstrels' swaying, and children chirping, And the bustle of boys bringing food, The cup-bearer weary, kitchen sore-tried, And three kinds of wine for the thirsty. Three customs there are, a merry country, At Daffyd's hight court, blameless boldness: Whoever you are, whatever you sing, And whatever the thing you're known for, Come whenever you wish, take what you see, And once come, stay as long as you like.
SEASONS GREETINGS EVERYBODY, PEACE AND GOODWILL TOO UNLESS YOUR A FASCIST ******* THEN **** YOU
British poet, author, one time professional boxer, WW11 deserter, honory Gypsy and Anarchist.
In dusk of helmet brims the eye looks stern,
Unwavering; no matter what they see
Or where they gaze- Bluff Cove, Thermopylae,
Kuwait, The Somme - the pillaged cities burn,
And when the owners of those eyes return
And put away their weapons there will be
An alien music in a harsher key,
New words and syntax difficult to learn.
Wars never end. Across the livid plain
The dark processions trail, the refugees,
Anonymous beneath indifferent skies,
Somnambulistic, patient shapes of pain,
Long commentary on war, an ancient frieze
Of figures we refuse to recognise.
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