Oh poem! Hear me.
Oh head! Pregnant. [with creativity]
Praise the jiifto.[i.e. in writing an excellent jiifto you are praising the form; the jiifto is a type of poem of which the metre is the same as that used in this hees poem]
Oh masafo! Be ready to fight. (?) [masafo is another type of poem with a line metrically equivalent more or less to two jiifto lines]
Oh water in a well! Do not come to an end, [water here is representative of the creative poetic impulse]
As the prosecutor [i.e. the apartheid regime]
came into the large court [lit. the place where many gather]
everything he presents / For each thing he presents
the case is his each time. [This line has presented problems, I have asked Gaarriye about it in an email but didn't get any response; we think it means what is given here, i.e. that whenever a prosecutor presents a case in this regime it is always a case which is his and which he is sure of winning because of the inequality.]
And the defendant--
Oh my goodness--
who is the head of the court
who is the the witness to it
and represents the law [there is still a little uncertainty over these lines, not in their meaning but whether it is the defendant, Mandela who is the head of the court etc. or whether, sarcastically, it is the prosecutor]
Oh gun! Do not stop.
Oh criminal! Do not sleep.
Oh lactating brain [a reference to the way the brain is full of poetry which is sustenance]
do not leave the poem alone. [i.e. do not give it up]
Oh pen! Become for me
a knife and a branding iron.
Be red with blood
and bathe/wash in poison. [ciin a leafless plant (sarcostemma viminale) with a poisonous milky sap]
Take this ink which is myrrh, [it is the bitterness of myrrh which is referred to here, a negative image]
that [i.e. the ink] which is the teacher,
and which is red in colour. [to correct mistakes, like red ink on essays]
Put pus in this hees poem, [hees could be translated as song, although this doesn't really do the word full justice in English]
[and] bitter resinous sap,
[and] aloe juice on which one chokes.
The gun I carry, [the gun here stands for the poem]
the respected Kalashnikov, [i.e. the gun I carry which is as respected as the Kalashnikov]
you are useful for [the] right hand side: [i.e. you can help]
"Help!" I have said to you / I say to you.
The snake which has cut/sliced the children,
and through which blood has budded, [i.e. has been shed]
wipe it [the snake, fig. for the oppressors] out with me. [i.e. let us together wipe it out]
Wisdom and spelling / alliteration
which has not been born out of a marriage of convenience [a maxlal marriage is one contracted when a woman wants to remarry a man from whom she is divorced, she must first marry another man whom she divorces and then marries the original husband. The idea here is that the poem is not the product of any such arrangement contracted just for convenience.]
and of which no man has grasped its fatty chin [Here the poem is being said to be not a commercial arrangement. When a person wants to buy a sheep in the market they will feel it, including its fatty chin to see if it is good to buy. The poem is not one that is to be sold.]
or has said [of it] "How much is it?" [another reference to the poem not being sold]
Invite to/through the verse,
into which I have added respect/honour,
Mandela and
the bad oppressors
People [i.e. the oppressors] who have hit him,
or [oppressors who have taken] people from their bushy place
46. and put them in prison.
Those [are the] four miscirir. [the back part of the aqal or xero]
Leave them to the bush.
Another thing is
Oh young sheep and goats without news
Has anyone passed news on to you? [lines 47-51 are what is called a dhextaal, an interlude which ends one section of the poem and introduces the next. The 4 miscirirs stand for the previous part of the poem and the ‘other thing' is the rest of the poem introduced by lines 50-1. These are the first lines of a known work song which has a particular metrical pattern which Gaarriye has used in this poem.]
I am a depressed / angry(?) person,
who is tied up
because of the lack of means to address the grudge
and who has said "no" to the calamity. [i.e. who has refused the oppression]
I am sturdy.
I am not a wretched man
who is the property of someone else;
who has no honour,
who because of destitution
is a guest led
to his own wealth which has been plundered.
Nor a man who deserves
glory and pity.
A fool who has thought highly of his own muscles,
when, on the left cheek, [of someone else]
he puts all his fingers; [i.e. when the fool slaps someone on the left cheek]
[then] like the Prophet Christ [lit. Messiah. N.B. Jesus is an important prophet in Islam also]
turn the right side to him.
I'm next to death. [i.e. I will accept only death]
The man who thinks of me as
small in the number of offspring(?)
and from a small lineage with no support; [i.e. in these three lines the oppressors];
and the part of the corral lined up [i.e. the people lined up (to support me)]
who encircle me,
both black and white,
who in position [i.e. in their political position]
and in determination
are united: [i.e. lines 75-80: the people who support me]
They [the two groups underlined above] are of different minds. [i.e. they both have different outlooks]
My empty belly,
the muscles which dupe me, [i.e. because I cannot move]
the anxiety of the soul
and my tied(?) hobbles,
the blindness I have
[These] are [all] mines and
buried death, [lit. the angel of death buried inside me [i.e. the angel of death is waiting to come out and put things right]]
which are at the time appointed
to explode [out of me].
What has been done to me and
what I intend
[Both of these] are of different minds. [i.e. they are different things one thought by the oppressor and one thought by me (the poet)]
But then (?) it has been said
‘The brush has worn down to nothing
but ground which has been worn out.' [i.e. by the brush] does not exist. [these two lines are a saying: ‘you can wear out the sweeping brush but it can't wear out the ground']
The worst canine teeth
which are pierced into me
[and] the poison: [here the poison is a type which is used on arrow and spear tips]
I have found the solution to them.
Now I'm absent minded [i.e. (I think) I was just then absent minded]
intoxicated
drugged(?) miiraabay
and suddenly/all at once I've become enlightened.
I have a direction/path
which people before [me] have passed along
and which they have been satisfied with / found to have a good outcome.
Those [are] four [pieces of] internal bark,
which have had the fibrous bark peeled from them.
Another thing is
‘speech is wisdom'.
Listen Abu Hadra! [Hadraawi, a very famous poet and friend of Gaarriye. These five lines are another dhextaal interlude]
The poem is a compensation claim.
For every man who is determined
and to whoever hates not refusing [i.e. to whoever hates not going against injustice, whoever wants to do something about injustice]
It is a safeguard/store stand-in [i.e. it stands in or acts as a safeguard or a store]
It is an honour and
a monument I have dedicated to
Mandela and
the person he represents [i.e. the people he represents].
In it I have written a dagger [something which lasts forever implied here?!]
And you Oh Mohamed. [Hadraawi]
The poem cannot do without
a man who is eligible to marry it [i.e. it is inevitable that a man (here Hadraawi but referring by extension to the listeners of the poem) will engage with it]
and so grasp its handle.
Provoke the colonialists with it.
The head which one bows
and apartheid:
that we never take [i.e. let us never take]
the rope. [i.e. the shackles of these things in lines 127-8]
Make the ignorant man and
the eater of the sheep's dewlap [i.e. the one who eats everything, figuratively here for the oppressors] understand.
Shock the one who licks his lips.
Recite the pithy words, (possible celebratory words?)
Words you knew
and bring out the unforgettable [things]
and proverb[s]. [from the poem]
And be a witness to it/to this:
If men bicker/enter into conflict,
our principle is,
with no darkness
blackness in it, [i.e. the principle]
that today and tomorrow
let the one who licks his lips [different word to the one used above; word from malaf soft grazing plants] fall down,
let the one who gains a living by legitimate means be. [i.e. let him live]
People are equal.
Let justice pierce through.
