El Habib Louai Two Poems

Two Poems

el habib louai

A Prayer to End the War

Tonight I shall refuse to argue or shout: “My loss is greater than yours!” Or even complain trivially: “My pain is more valuable!” As if we have not dodged the same bombs together. As if we haven’t looked the same enemy in the eye.

Tonight I will not marry the empty bed in the empty corner of the empty shelter.

Tonight our dry skins and worn bones that survived immeasurable distances, that outlived sickness unto death will unite in eternal embrace & I shall eat you with kisses.

Killing Time in Times of Oblivion

Nothing gives me hope anymore save the haggard eyes of the youth in plastic sandals. The distant smile on their shabby faces, hoping they will make it through life with less commotion.

A thousand times broken, I drift into frozen bars in the narrow lanes of the city when all the mourning cars have vanished. And because I refuse to avenge time as it kills us in times of oblivion, I went out in the night, escorted by the remaining angels, to purchase new copies of things I have already acquired.

Curiously, I bought Italo’s Cosmicomics to position myself in a world obsessed with global warming, while innocent children freeze in refugee camps on the borders, I bought le vicomte pourfendu to learn about the paternal ingratitude ex-colonies show to their mummies.

And just because I am walking after midnight on a mindless journey, I thought I would purchase voyage au bout de la nuit, to leaf through nocturnal memories of another familial mort à credit. Alas, “there is no midnight mystery and no coconuts to see.”

I would rather sell orphaned chrysanthemums on the untrodden ways, than besmirch my hands with bleeding red roses.