Global Guest By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid Ashraf-Dali

The Memory of the Silence

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, Egypt, March 13, 1963. Editor in Chief, THE SILK ROAD LITERATURE SERIES, Worked in Cultural Journalism for 30 years. Authored and translated 40 books. Man of Culture for the Year, 2012, Tatarstan, Russia. Manhae Prize in Literature, 2014, the Republic of Korea, Arab Journalism Award in Culture, in 2015, UAE, President, Asia Journalist Association since April 2016. Some of his books are translated into Korean, Turkish, Persian, German, English, Sindhi, Spanish and Malayalam.

No one reminds you of
Your night companions,
Except a burning head,
Full of the ashes
Of their stories!
A head full of silence.
They left their wives away,
They left their sons
In the alleys of memories.
And they left their brothers framed
In windows.
They came out of the heart of hills,
To sink in the night of silence.
They passed, leaving you
With the cold bread
Of the hot night.
Will you read anything?
Books will not offer themselves easily
Offer to you.
Every evening,
You open a volume of poetry,
Not to read it,
But to just receive your dreams
Between its lines of verse.
What could the texts of the world do
For a head full of
Disaster?
Will you watch the paintings
On the walls of the room?
The crying boy is on the left,
And the weeping girl on the opposite side.
But the poor artist can not paint
A joining way between both of them!
Yesterday,
Dreams were no longer running
On your pillows.
You pass from bedroom to hall,
with your worries:
How many seasons did pass
without having anyone
To look at your window?
How many years did pass
without having anyone
to knock at your door?
The flying bird,
on the neighboring wall
Does not sing for you!
The standing man,
in the opposite window,
does not smile for you!
The faraway crossing female,
does not look at you!
And the cat,
Does not pay attention,
To your mice!
And, the next morning will not carry
Anything new for you,
Except the sorrow of the newspapers,
And the sore of coffee.
I am climbing over the gate of the past,
Looking for those who passed,
Nothing I can see on the ancient glass,
But some shadows of faces,
under naked trees.
I lived the silence tonight,
So I did yesterday,
And the day before.
Do you remember anything?
– When I forgot my sorrows
I forgot my joys!
(The Joy is just an apple cake
burnt in an American oven.)
The trees throw
their dry yellow leaves.
You may walk on them
to break this silence.
The stone you may throw into the pool,
To splash water around you.
This will not force the body of silence
to sink.
The flute of a branch may break
the virginity of silence.
Alone you walk,
Looking at a mirror,
Talking to
The floating face on the ocean;
asking:
Who can break this silence?
Alone,
You will never bear anything!
You wish a fire,
You want the stick of Moses
To drink the river of silence;
The river of disaster;
The river of bad news;
The river of the dead dreams;
Who would give you that
Holy fire?
The towns of the world
Get noise every morning,
And get up.
Except this one!
It has never got up!
The silence of night crept
Into the streets,
Even car horns could not
Speak a tongue:
– This red tea is sour
– Sore sour? Put more sugar.
– A spoon?
– No, ten spoons!
– Is red tea still sore sour?
– Give more sugar?
– Few quips cubes?
– No, ten ones!
The salty towns are sore!
This morning is just a coin,
You do not trust its metal.
With no face,
To suit every time and place.
If you get out of
The cold coffin,
You shall sink
In the solar tomb.
Live human beings have
The faces of dead bodies.
And dead bodies have
The smell of living people.
I am scattered among them.
My green passport’s papers are dry,
As I cultivate my way,
In the heart of the desert!
This land is a mirage,
A womb that gives birth only for our disasters,
It is the land where we build cities,
Will never be the homes of our children!
We shall not know,
How will rains come
On the body where sadness
Is camping in his eyes!
A body is not concerned with anything,
But this red silence,
That looks like the summer’s nights.
There was a bell ringing,
To set fire in the night
With their tales of silence.
(I may through my head away of the door)
And close it after them.