The Head's Loneliness Poem by Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen

The Head's Loneliness



In my height,
I heard the sound of days,
The days were as widows dressed in black.
In my paleness,
I heard the guard's voice
Quarrelling about the spoils of
My boyhood, my youth and my beard's whiteness.
So, I got confused;
Was copper so cheap to this extent against gold?

In my height and paleness,
My eyes were too tired to see
Thus, I started to see through my ears
And perceive through my heart.
It was an absolute loneliness
Loneliness looked just like me,
I was the armless man
Stabbed and confounded by the scene of blood
Dripping heavily as a waterfall.
The scene of blood was frigid and quiet
As a child's lullaby.

In my height and paleness,
I was transported from war to war,
From desert to desert,
From ship to ship,
From confusion to confusion,
From copper to copper.
But gold observed me.
My friends - before my enemies - bowed
In front of the brilliance of gold.
They secretly handed me to Judas
And Judas, before everybody got up
From his restless sleep,
From his bitter greed,
Led me to my exile and hell.
Led me to my long spear.

Yah,
My long spear!
All of them bear copper spears
Mine is the longest.
Yah!
How cool my forehead is!
How peaceful my dream is!
How beautiful my birds are!
They follow me from slavery to slavery
From freedom to freedom.
All of them see but they do not understand.
All of them get tortured by the copper spears
That enter their eyes blinded by brilliance.
What cries they had!
What sobs they had!
What disappointments they had!

In my height,
In my loneliness, paleness,
And in my great travel,
I heard the sound of everything.
With the eyes, the ears, the heart
I saw everything.
I mocked the brilliance of gold and copper
The brilliance of guards
The brilliance of days
And the brilliance of words.

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