I

They took all from him
family, country, years
Today it's the peak of a mountain
that he helps to escape

Writing 
Breath of azure in the crimson of a cry
arm laid on the thread of one star
tent set up on the stake of the alif*
eternity clad in the garment of the wind
lances of silver
in the blood of endurance
Lakes of wisdom
in the hollow of a hand

Writing
Rust on the gold of meaning

You rub the steam of the tongue
as if you were scraping some charred metal
You possess yourself of a fifth season
that mingles elements and words
and in the inkwell you practise
wrenching up the sponge from divine waters.

Letters, lace on the brassière
of an Arab woman whose name is Desert
 

  II

Arabs
in the mausoleum of language
Saints
in the cathedral of exile
Sorcerers licking crucifixes
Arabs in flight across a desert
whose frontiers are enclosed by a single word
Arabs storming history
like elephants going to their graveyard
Arabs cast out from their language
Arabs cast out from its sands.

Arabs
We

Body
Chimerical animal hung on the question
Do not allow it on the pavement
nor bury it beneath the sand
Burn it
Fling its ashes to the wind
Collect it in a box
or on a page
The Poem
 

  III

Rings
Protuberances of believers' minds
Chains upon the caverns of time
Fragments of a calcified wind
drops of sperm on the flank of the past
Abbassid monies
in the severed hand of a Quarmatian
at Basra, one thousand years ago,
pebbles of tears
of passions and canticles
Coloured knots
from the tangled thread of the eternal's web
Alabaster is the snare
of a maxim in the form of a fossil
Coral is cleft
sex of a still virgin sea-siren
Ruby is the ancient drop of blood
that is always remembering 

Rings
 

  IV

On the forehead's peak
a rough sketch of snarled rigging
on a broken mast

Lip
wave withdrawing

Orbs
ashes of conflagrations to come

Visage
 

  V

Clay
The body happens to knock against nothingness
And there's a shudder
fragments crumbling away
from the soul's tablets

The voice dying away there
leaves on its flesh
wrinkles and skeletons of surreal creatures
Tablets
Dictionaries
at the doors of a library of stone
after thousands of years
standing guard
at the entrance to towns
at the entrance to words.
 

  VI

Between mountain and sea
between rust and soul
Within the temple she beseeches
wood, the spirits, and the faithful
But the Hindu god
has concealed his corpse under everything
Prayer
a cracked vase

Aden
 

  VII
  To Bernard Noël

Belated within the wound
I lived through a sleepless night

The first charred trees had
described the conflagration for us

The profound page
is a buried page

Bodies 
barefoot among the words
forehead bared with meaning

When the tongue sheds its shadow
its rivers and its forests
in the geographies of the beyond
something approaches

and the desert becomes
the first step taken by a god
on his way to Earth
The language of the Arabs then leads to the sky
peoples, ouds, plateaus and mountains

Who shall rob the hill of Najd
of the Alphabet's apparel

Beginnings are offerings
endings are gods

Give the current the hollow of your hand
that you may forget its source

What ear of corn is wheat born of our blood
What famine 

* Alif is the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and written rather like the letter l
 

Translated by James Kirkup
 

This poem was translatedas part of a Banipal No 20 review of L'Obélisque d'Anaïl, Chawki Abdelamir's latest poetry collection in French translation, which was awarded the 2004 prestigious Max Jacob Prize for International Poetry. The collection was translated from the original Arabic by a number of translators in collaboration with the author. James Kirkup's translation into English is republished here from Banipal No 20.