1.

 

Writing is pain.

 

And the blood that drips down the screen pollutes the atmosphere

staining the couch with what looks like dried coffee, which we touch with trembling fingers so we don't get infected.

 

We manage with broken backs as if going to hell seeing dark red - no, brown as well - which deposits a residue like rust in the soul.

 

We stroke their old heads then turn aside to lick away the tears.

 

Those who crawl from street to screen leave green traces on the asphalt that spring into bushes of basil; they toss us a flower and die in haste to spare our shame.

 

Now you've entered the sacred valley, take off your shoes and walk on broken glass.

 

2.

 

The comrades in reading have fallen asleep.

You wander alone through the book stacks

with no sign of an exit.

From the third shelf on the right comes a groan -

a whole chapter expelled from a novel.

Laughter the tragic title

for a book of philiosophy.

Politics flows like phlegm from one shelf to another.

There is no time for epic

for The Book of Delight and Intimacy

as Machado eases open the book covers

gently, so as not to disturb the ornaments.

 

We are the proofs of books

full of paragraphs in need of revision.

 

3.

 

I sit on the balcony. Aleppo spread before me black and deserted. The clatter of crockery in the dark means life goes on. No sound save sporadic gunfire from somewhere, then a single shell preceded by a peculiar whistle. Someone is leaving this planet with a dry throat. Aleppo before me black and still. These huge shadows might be trees or childhood goblins or black vapours exhaled by women waiting for children who are already numbers in a news report.

 

Aleppo. No oud plucked. No 'Swaying Silhouette'. No drinks in The Nightingale. No drinkers. No song.

 

One by one

they awaken

the beasts of darkness.

 

4.

 

 

I am Marina Constantine

widow of the priest George Shihwaro

companion of Marcel as we walk, late at night, to our home;

I am she, endowed with secrets of the holy church,

with cherries at the bottom of a glass of liqueur,

busy with laughter at the age of fifty,

hair braids forgotten in an old chest of drawers.

..

..

 

I am Marina

returning from the Carlton

where life clings to music

and thickens like frankincense

Freely

I scatter salt

even though I know that meat will not spoil

I dip a finger in wine to rejoice my heart.

..

..

 

I am Marina

who, at the wrong turn, smelled

the odour of fear exuding from sweating fists

piercing the air like lead

before the Citadel vanished in a magician's hat

..

..

 

I am Marina

who did not know she had died

until, alongside the thousands bearing roses wearing white,

she heard

the words of the priest in the church of Prophet Ilyas: