Victim of Ravenous Nights
A Window into Contemporary Omani Literature
Published: 02:01 PM,Jan 17,2022 | EDITED : 06:01 PM,Jan 17,2022
The following are translation of poems by the Omani poet Hilal Al Hajri (1968-) from his first collection titled: “Night Is Mine”, (Muscat: 2006):
At Some Moment
On the peak of Jabal Al Akhdhar
When
The world burns out
And the secret in your eyes shines
When heaven comes close to earth
Everything becomes
Possible:
To pluck a moon
Or sleep with a star.
Alienation
The waitress
To whom I said one night,
"I crave to cry
In your bosom"
Has left the city.
And the star
That seduced me at dusk
Has died out now
At dawn.
Defunct
A redundant body
With no mission
Wings of imagination
Take him
Round an orgy of delight
Where human surplus
Prevails even over emptiness.
How can I break up this blockade?
The mind fire I can hardly quench
Is
Victim of ravenous nights.
O roofs, come closer to earth
O corners, embrace me without pity
O joggling cup,
Feed on from my wounded soul!
Ode to an Unknown Phoenician Warrior
O sand lady
Good evening,
An evening of jelly-like time
An evening of time torn in Balqees' tower
(She thinks it a sea)
An evening of myths... nothing but myths...
From them we start love, with them we end the kisses
An evening of time that will never come,
An evening
Large as treasons in One Thousand Nights,
Far as the distance
Between a prophet who lights
A match to burn his village,
And another who drowns it in decay,
Large as the neigh it lucked,
The drums of the dervishes
In the village of salt and gossip
Large as the commandments
Torn apart
By the child's hand
Shivering in the sky
Large as the languages in my mouth
Nothing there but letters of crying.
***
An evening of childhood,
O sand lady,
An evening of an epoch that's gone,
An evening of time that will never come.
What is between the cradle of breathing in and out?
A wide expanse of loss bargains me
My steeds are bargained
The questions stretch out
And the paths to death are virgin.
No prophet has yet stepped on the square of my mind.
There're the tribes grilling
Mornings in the palm of sun,
Awaiting for the impossible knight.
In cradle was tranquility
In grave was tranquility
So where do we start our wishes?
Tomorrow
All the caravans travel to the mazes
No footwear do I have but the rear of questions.
***
An evening of childhood
O sand lady
An evening of an epoch that's gone
An evening of time that will never come.
At Some Moment
On the peak of Jabal Al Akhdhar
When
The world burns out
And the secret in your eyes shines
When heaven comes close to earth
Everything becomes
Possible:
To pluck a moon
Or sleep with a star.
Alienation
The waitress
To whom I said one night,
"I crave to cry
In your bosom"
Has left the city.
And the star
That seduced me at dusk
Has died out now
At dawn.
Defunct
A redundant body
With no mission
Wings of imagination
Take him
Round an orgy of delight
Where human surplus
Prevails even over emptiness.
How can I break up this blockade?
The mind fire I can hardly quench
Is
Victim of ravenous nights.
O roofs, come closer to earth
O corners, embrace me without pity
O joggling cup,
Feed on from my wounded soul!
Ode to an Unknown Phoenician Warrior
O sand lady
Good evening,
An evening of jelly-like time
An evening of time torn in Balqees' tower
(She thinks it a sea)
An evening of myths... nothing but myths...
From them we start love, with them we end the kisses
An evening of time that will never come,
An evening
Large as treasons in One Thousand Nights,
Far as the distance
Between a prophet who lights
A match to burn his village,
And another who drowns it in decay,
Large as the neigh it lucked,
The drums of the dervishes
In the village of salt and gossip
Large as the commandments
Torn apart
By the child's hand
Shivering in the sky
Large as the languages in my mouth
Nothing there but letters of crying.
***
An evening of childhood,
O sand lady,
An evening of an epoch that's gone,
An evening of time that will never come.
What is between the cradle of breathing in and out?
A wide expanse of loss bargains me
My steeds are bargained
The questions stretch out
And the paths to death are virgin.
No prophet has yet stepped on the square of my mind.
There're the tribes grilling
Mornings in the palm of sun,
Awaiting for the impossible knight.
In cradle was tranquility
In grave was tranquility
So where do we start our wishes?
Tomorrow
All the caravans travel to the mazes
No footwear do I have but the rear of questions.
***
An evening of childhood
O sand lady
An evening of an epoch that's gone
An evening of time that will never come.