The following are translations of poems by the Omani poet Hilal Al Hajri (1968-) from his first collection titled: “Night Is Mine”, (Muscat: 2006):
Letters to the Woman of 10: 30 pm
1-
Torture me no more,
You my darling,
The sand
And the moon.
This sacred color pierces me to slavery.
And when I come close
To your eyes’ pure water
You will be
Luscious and shiny
Like the saliva of a candle.
Only is the desert wide enough
For my shivering fingertips
While I pluck the sweat of delight
From your forehead.
When you stroke my forests of madness
With your soft hands
An old sorrow and a rootless gasp
Seep from my heart.
Like a tent
Of chieftains and the weary old
I bowed on your bloody dunes
Perhaps
Seeking my ancient childhood
Or my nipple-like salient future.
I bowed then
With enough innocence and defiance
To seduce this night.
But
I’m encircled by the blue spear
Hurled by the fires
Of rejection and desire
Coming from your lungs.
After I return desperate
Like Jesus
From the primordial soup
Of love and loss
I plead with the voice of Fairoz
To find a warm bower
Amidst the gliding tears
On your virgin cheeks.
2-
At 10: 30
This night
And every night
I go past your blue heart
Quietly
Like a breeze
Pale
Like a shadow.
My forehead trickles
Anguish and gloom
From the depths of alienation.
I resort to you with fear
Like a Bedouin to his sword
To rub off
A fluff of sadness
That floats on my heart
Like thickets on hills.
3-
Guide me
To your body’s peak.
The flood’s coming again
The flood
Coming
Again.
I don’t want
To die
Drowned in tears
And daydreams.
4-
Your golden cheek,
Your seed of wheat
Is no longer
My first concern.
From now on
I’ll swim like an Omani sailor
Down to East Africa,
To your red-dew wetted hair,
To
Your bosom rebellious
Like the pirates’ coast!
I am
The grandson
Of thwarted desires
And the passions of Bedouin
Away from their wives
Since the first conquests.
5-
I won’t read to you
Any of my poems
Today
You won’t hear the melody
Of your grace in my poems.
I’ll rather keep my eyes wide all night.
Grinding my teeth.
Like a dead person
With my tears
I’ll count the sand grains
I placed beneath your left breast
In the middle of a night!
