“Wrong Winds,” a Poem by Ahmad Almallah

Wrong Winds

                for Paul Celan

*
In Berlin there is the sadness
of old murder.

In Granada there was the sadness
of murdered names,

names
_____unable to make up their minds
_____about origins.

Silence doesn’t come easy in
_____Spain.
One has to wait,

_____like the wind,
_____for the moment to transform itself
_____into a scream,

and silence might then appear
_____for a second:

_____a headless statue
_____without a name.

Mirror: [O, I look in this sheltered
_____glass
for the figures beside
the image: what do I
lack? Only that connection
to your courage
_____to end life
_____when, for you,
there
_____was no more]

1
_____I, you, and the others like
_____to generalize:
To console myself I say —
I belong to my head. No:
I won’t ask Gods to pray
for us like you did. No,
und nein, just like nine
months of murder can’t
cancel a new-born wind
in those wombs that
have failed to carry the
fractions of your numbered
past, among the ones who
placed a body in your every
thought, and fanned the
_____wrong
winds—
_____the ones coming to
you in no guises, in no act of the
breeze—Schief mit what, what will
_____make you shed
_____blood without
_____any tears?

Mirror: [Berlin knows its
dead. Without design, I’m
lost. Once more. Did I mention:
“without design”? Because without
it, I stumble on your Sundays, Berlin, O
without design: I’m where the living tend
to their dead: “Pflanzenabfälle.”
What does it mean to be a found object, in place
of the dead, not dying?
Because for many, this found cemetery
is only a path, for most
a shortcut. That way. Yes.
This way. Nein. Like a new-
born wind
_____we
know the dead more
than we think]

2
You, who inhaled the fumes
of German syllables, because
that clunky thing gave you
chance and words to pin against
the body that you suffered silently
because, again, you wanted to give
_____words, a wink:
_____a bleeding form that
_____cannot be divided by
___________teeth.

But there is no such thing
as belonging without edges.

Say it!

“I belong to kill my other!”

Berlin knows these words
because it’s not a city—it’s
sour and sudden like
_a cherry
______inside a piece of
___________burnt bread.

Mirror: [The kids find their sticks, and if you eye
one of them, they’ll all eye you back, and raise their sticks
against you. This is no surprise.
The stick is the original weapon, and Hugo, the name of that little
shit, when called by his father, drops his weapon
to save his name.]

3
So tell me, whoever
_____art thou:
Can I swallow the scene
instead of framing it?

Mirror: [Berlin in this summer green hides
her dead again. On Sundays the park fills with feet,
and hatred is a thing
nurtured in the news. There is death,
coming from every
where—let’s not name names
lest we

are all
_____accused of
_____forgetfulness.]

4
Poisoned by your name, you
declared that our bodies are
only feet, dug in the dirt. If
we lack movement, we are
_____chained. Didn’t
al-Mutanabbi make it before us
to such reductions. Didn’t
his doctor reduce his tied-up
soul to some ailment unworthy
of poets? What malady could
come from food or drink?! You,
on the other hand, suffered in
concentration the maladies of
hunger. Your body was that of
others: feet dug into the ground
till there was no body attached:
Were you not like all the others
named, the victor’s victim?

Mirror: [After so many mornings
_______________in this place or
with it: Arabic comes from
_____a passer-by,
ears perk up
_____to pick sound.
Then eyes witness
_____the face that said.

Why can’t the eye shut I?

Because I eye the lie that’s me,
something about our inherent Arab-ness,
another line by al-Mutanabbi that says,

_____Love less O heart, love less,
_____I see you giving love to one, underserving.

Words overwhelm, and say
_____STOP.
We, like the body,
_____can carry
_____no more.]

5
What’s the heart of a place? Is it a pond? Is it
a wound? Is it the puddles made by rain? What’s
all this wounded beauty?

_____A black cat passes like a cloud. It scares but does not
scratch. There is fear. There might be more to fear,
_____because here in Berlin
the possible outnumbers the impossible, and you have to guard yourself
from all that is available.
_____Then my new-found friend in some bar tells me:      take a line
_____of cocaine!…Put down your pen!

Mirror: [On the wall: a bottle and a poet, and if I describe things as they are
I’m sure to lose something of the truth.
_____The language that binds us to ourselves is not there, not
here either: Is that what a poet is supposed to find,
among the heap of ruins
_____and waste—
a city, like you, like others in Europe?

And in the distance, “We,”
the poets?        We
_____clasp onto meaning
as though life depends on it, and then
we clasp some more, without much
thinking or thought, and in our minds
_____we are always right!
But wrong.
_____I wish I was a bottle
carrying a message
_____—not a poet.]

6
_____Behind bars we are all
striped. The animal in us can’t
hide for long. We lock the door
to create our prison. We turn the key
to prevent bodies from reaching our own: Can
we imagine what’s out there if we don’t draw
what bounds us? Eyes try to notice and record:
You can see more clearly if you are blind: yes—
Just as much. There are walkers and talkers,
laughter and laughers. Just as much.
There are fathers
and fuckers—             and the blue ball—
__________that’s not the world
__________rolling down the street
__________beyond school bounds.

Mirror: [The rest of the story might be as dark as those German clouds
in May or June…or July? Above Berlin, there is Germany,
above Germany, there is Europe, above all, there is the
sky. What else did you think?
__________I hide in front of signs. This is my usual trick.
__________I want to be something like they are—
And the green of the streets and parks hides in plain sight.
Why is it summer in a place
that knows so much ash?

___

7
Places don’t make sense to me or you. We are
here and there, only because the body is
_____a vehicle.
And now after the flood
_____of images, and emojis, we
don’t need any mirror
_____to look at ourselves.
_____We already know
the truth.
__________Now, what will it
__________do to you?

Mirror: [Broken
or not, this is all unreal, surreal,
so real! Word by word, I put my pen
to play, only to reduce this
place to what it is, and whoever tells
me, your words are a matter of…
_____Let’s not go there.
_____Let’s get out of here.
_____Mince your words.

I say, to myself,
_____as I always do:
_____I want to forget you.

_____You,
_____City of Fumes: Why can’t you sit straight with yourself?

Dark matter evades all matter, because it’s the abuse
of color, in some way or another…I see the crowds coming to fill
their cups with your darkness. How is it that so many murders
could produce this wiped-out vanity. Europe flatters
itself with your destiny and diversity,
____and all that beauty
____that can’t be put together.]