When I Was A Poet Poem by Ati Albarkat

When I was a poet

Ati al-Barakat


Ever since that perilous awakening in the soul's desert, I have been trying to recite the faraway.

Ever since the first time the colored pawns stood up, I have been laying down on the tears of the tribe that cleaned all the toilets of cities, gulping from wine rivers, with its honor.

Ever since the first moments of my life, I have been searching the pockets of implied personal pronouns for shepherds with a small amount of honesty.

Ever since…
Ever since…
Ever since…

And the the journey, for which I have never hoped for a safe ending, continues. I am approaching forty and don't know how I reached it, with the millions of snipers, their fingers moving the secrets of the laser world, sitting close to each other in this void of homeland. A homeland not touched by mercy or tenderness.

It never occurred to me to hope, because I learned well from the dashed hopes of the unfortunate.

I never dreamed of anything, whether asleep or awake. The only thing that has passed through my mind, since my childhood, is just static from the president's last TV broadcast the president, showing us our fathers departing in the harvest season. A harvest of rocket launchers whose season will last until Judgement Day.

I didn't pretend to be religious but I didn't sin, with my clean record as my witness.

I didn't paint my face with prestige and didn't spend a single penny for presidency. But all these people — poor, rich, heretical, decent — kiss the hand of my father because he, in a moment of weakness, sent me into the inferno for nothing in return. My father who loves to host feasts even when he is broke.

I didn't strive to have genuine degrees,
like those our ministers have the nerve to hang on their office walls. The walls that clean themselves, but can't be cleaned from what we see on their faces in the daylight.

However, there are college degrees resting under the books in my library that will satisfy the world.

I've passed through every city but my soul was never at rest, except in the landmined places and conflict zones that serious peace brokers have failed to solve — or have fueled the conflicts!

(it doesn't matter anymore)
(a piece of pottery breaks the set)
(their fire consumes their wood)

These sentences became slogans and rules that govern all people but me.

(crooked)

It wasn't born crooked but we made it that way.

(we have given up)

I haven't given up yet, I will change the entire world with my 28-letter alphabet. I will change it with my pen that was sharpened by the pain of all creation.

I am a poet. A poet is more powerful than a prophet, and no god can control him, even God himself!