Salman Masalha
Salman Masalha
The Little Girl from Gaza
The little girl from Gaza
builds nests
of sea feathers.
The man who stands by the wall
hides in his eyes a necklace
strung of memory leaves.
When the street runs
beneath untamed steps,
the nests cracks
open with legends.
Boys scamper
in the dusk colors.
They gather the muffled voice
from the desert sands.
At...
The Language Angels Speak
Salman Masalha
The Language Angels Speak
Presumably like all kids around the world, I was once asked an immortal question: What would you like to be when you grow up? Quite bizarre and abnormal in the circumstances and conditions I was born to, and unlike other children who have dreamed of becoming doctors, advocates, engineers etc., my answer...
The Poem
Salman MasalhaTHE POEMEmpty the sea of its fish.Bring clouds back to the river.Wipe from the infant’s lipsthe weight of pregnant women.Branches of grief shade all.And legends are sorrowsmilked from widows’ breasts.When prophets departdo not report the loss.And never never saythat hope hides inthe poem.Translated by Vivian Eden with the author***For...
The Song
Salman MasalhaTHE SONGThe Arab’s SpeechEvery time I say I’m hungrya military genius hands me a fishing poleand sends me to catch some fish in the desert,but I hook only scales.And as I don’t drink sand,I can’t pass my water. MoreoverI suffer from constipation.And as I am hungry, and truly love life,I eat my toes, because I so regretI agreed to go out...
In Haifa by the Sea
Salman MasalhaIn Haifa by the Sea
(In memory of Emile Habiby)In Haifa, by the sea, the smells of saltrise from the
earth. And the sunhanging from a tree unravels wind.In a row of
trees bathed in stonemen, women and silence have beenplanted.
Tenants in an apartmentblock...
Patches of Color
Salman MasalhaPATCHES OF COLOROn the wall that leans inward,which I built of words that peckedmy path, I have drawn neither windows nordoor. And all this, for fear that undesirableair will infiltrate my home. And Iam not as young as I was. But I hungin their stead frames I had savedfrom the days of my childhood. And I paintedin green the hands of a...
Honor Killing
Salman Masalha
HONOR KILLING
There is not a single Arab locale in Israel or abroad that has not experienced murders in the context of what is known as “family honor.” Weak-minded Arab intellectuals try to minimize the important of these deeds with various claims, including the comparison of “family honor” killing with the crime passionel, murder...
In the Dark Room
Salman MasalhaIn the Dark RoomIn the dark room, you see thingsyou can't see in the lit room.The alien light that comes from afarslips into the yard like a shadowfatigued by the darkness. A blackbird on the windowsillsuckles honey in the fog.I bear a blessing from the BookOf Secrets. I reveal the storyof the Vale of Tears. The manwho swam in shallow...
Tribal Tribulations
Salman Masalha
Tribal Tribulations
On May 2nd, 1860, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a Jewish boy was born to Jacob and Jannet in the city of Pest, which later joined Buda to form Budapest. They called him Theodor. Young Theodor wandered in many places and settled in Vienna where he studied law, a profession in which he never worked.
This young...
Safar
Salman MasalhaSafar I walk in the clouds.My horizon tinted dew.Mirages are the myths.My life has passed in vainLooking for the true.If a friend would ask me backTo the land of the sane,I'd never leave the sands,I'd never leave the track.Thoughts stretch taut at night.Desire is a lightThat sparkles in the eye.I am a mad song.Like an echo, I fly.Translated...
Anthem for the Tribe of Israel
Salman Masalha
ANTHEM FOR THE TRIBE OF ISRAEL
Yitzhak Rabin was murdered on the tense border between the Jewish and the Israeli. He was murdered by the emissaries of the Jewish tribe because he had the courage to try to expand the grazing lands of the Israeli tribe at the expense of the Jewish tribe. Thus the Golem took revenge on its creator.
It...
The New Arab Order
Salman Masalha
The New Arab Order
Could a social and political arrangement be reached, with the aim of governing Arab life so as to move beyond the perpetual state of conflict that Arab peoples and regimes have been locked in for generations? Is there a true will to reach such a formula? And can the new Iraq provide a model to be emulated in this...
The Apache War
Salman MasalhaThe Apache WarSummer Rains. Thus spoke the Israel Defense Forces muses and a pleasant chill emanated from the radio and television receivers and seeped into the heart of the sticky consensus in the heat of a new summer. Before long the Israeli media buried the wicked use of the Hebrew language, meant to conceal crimes perpetrated by the...
He Made a Homeland of Words
Salman Masalha
He Made a Homeland of Words
(Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008)
"My homeland is not a suitcase and I am no traveler," Mahmoud Darwish wrote in an attempt to give poetic expression to the Palestinian tragedy. But it seems that after he decided to up and leave Haifa of his own accord in 1970, eventually joining the ranks of the Palestine...
The Cat, the Cross and the Cream
Salman MasalhaTHE CAT, THE CROSS AND THE CREAMIs the Israeli cat trying to guard the cream? Or are we going to get lost in Nazareth? And what is the connection between all this and the people that is vanishing as the end of the millennium approaches? Are you confused? This is a sign that you are on the right track.Once upon a time in the land of the...
The City of the Walking Flower
Salman Masalha The City of the Walking Flower
Here, on the watershed of the winds, between reality and imagination, between
the utopia of the celestial spheres and the doom of the underworld, stands
Jerusalem. The city is a pile of stones that separates sea from sea, tomorrow
from yesterday, the green from the desert, and, above all,...
MIDDLE EAST
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War Games
Israel also needs Iran. Just as Iran calls Israel the Little Satan (compared to the great American one), Israel also portrays Iran as the devil incarnate...
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Arab Nationalism?
The past several years have provided decisive proof that all the pompous Arab slogans from the ideological school of the Syrian and Iraqi Ba’ath parties...
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