اهرب Escape!

اهرب

وأسمعُ صوتاً يقول لي: اهربْ
واتركْ جزيرة الإنكليز وراءك
لا شيء تنتمي إليه سوى هذا المذياع المقلَّد بإتقان
سوى سخّان القهوة
سوى أشجار الحديقة المخطَّطة على حرير السماء
وأسمعُ الصوت بلغاتٍ أعرفها
وأُخرى أجهلها:
اهربْ
واترك وراءك الباصات الحمراء المتهالِكة
سِكَكَ القطارات الصّدئة
هذه الأُمّةَ المفجوعة بصباح العمل
هذه العائلةَ التي تعلِّق صورة رأس المال في غرفة الجلوس كأنَّه والدُها
اهربْ من هذه الجزيرة
لا شيء وراءك سوى الشبابيك
شبابيك على مدِّ النظر
شبابيك في النهار
وشبابيك في الليل
واجهاتٌ مطفأة لآلامٍ مضاءة
واجهاتٌ مضيئةٌ لآلامٍ مطفأة  
وتسمع الصوت: اهربْ
بجميع لغاتِ سكّانِ المدينةِ الهاربين مِنْ أحلام طفولاتهم
مِنْ آلامِ مُستعمَراتٍ تحوّلتْ تواقيعَ باردة في كتبٍ مات مؤلِّفوها.
أولئك الهاربون ونسَوْا مما هربوا، الذين يَجبُنون عن قَطْعِ الشارع
يَستجمِعون الآن جُبنَهم ويصرخون:
اهربْ.
 

Escape!

I hear a voice saying: escape
And leave this English isle behind
You belong to nothing except this ornate radio
Except the coffee pot
Except the garden trees outlined against the silky sky
I hear voices speaking in languages I know
And others I don’t:
Escape
And leave behind the dilapidated red buses
The rusty train tracks
This nation obsessed with morning work
This family which hangs a picture of capitalism in the living room as if it were its ancestor
Escape from this isle
There are only windows behind you
Windows as far as you can see 
Windows in daylight
Windows at night
Dull aspects for brightly-lit pain
Brightly-lit aspects for dull pain
And you hear the voices: escape
In all the city’s languages, residents are fleeing from their childhood dreams
From the scars of colonies that turned to cold signatures as their authors died
Those escaping have forgotten what they escaped from, too cowardly now to cross the street
They gather all their cowardice and scream:
Escape
 

Escape

I hear a voice addressing me: escape
And leave the English isles behind you
You belong to nothing except this ornate radio
Except the coffee-pot 
Except the garden’s trees outlined on the silky sky 
And I hear voices speaking in languages that I know
And others that I do not:
Escape
And leave behind you the dilapidated red buses
The rusty train tracks
This nation, obsessed with morning work
This family which hangs a picture of capitalism in the living room as if it were its ancestor 
Escape from this isle 
There are only windows behind you
Windows as far as you can see 
Windows during daylight
Windows at night 
Dull aspects for brightly-lit pains 
Brightly-lit aspects for dull pains
And you hear the voices:
Escape 
In all languages of the city’s residents, fleeing their childhood dreams
From the pains of colonies that turned into cold signatures as their authors died. 
Those escaping forgetting what they have escaped from, too cowardly now to cross the street
They gather all their cowardice and scream:
Escape 
 

In the workshop we revelled in this poem’s irony and earnestness. How much it felt felt, yet how funny it was. The general and particular scales of accusation that it employs.

We decided to use an exclamation mark in the title to convey the imperative used in the Arabic, whereas in the body of the poem we used a less emphatic approach to punctuation (following the Arabic more directly) which seemed to let the sense remain mysteriously unresolved. Throughout, the poem takes clear-sighted aim at the shortcomings of society (“This family which hangs a picture of capitalism in the living room as if it were its ancestor”) and colonial ideology (“From the scars of colonies that turned to cold signatures as their authors died”), lampooning what is demonstrably corrupt while never quite succumbing to the traceable, fixed position of a prose opinion piece.

Edward Doegar, Commissioning Editor

Original Poem by

Najwan Darwish

Translated by

Atef Alshaer with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Arabic

Country

Palestine