The Cafe of Sad Lands

Iman Shahin Sharba*

In the sad café,

History sits on the last chair,

Following –from the near distance,

The despair cycle,

While an old man

Counts up how many times the country regressed,

Taking out of his pocket an aging page.

But on a vague table a woman collects the bits

Of a torn family photo,

A saint hums blasphemous phrases,  

And there is a pregnant nun.    

In the sad cafe

A child tidies up his little memories,

Throwing away a page of misery

In the bin of past experiences,

A youth leans on wheels,

Going astray with an urging need to weep and

Dreaming of love and a family,

Yet his mute mobile

Forgot the vibration of the senses.

In the cafe

A tree without a stump,

Dreaming of a green crown,

Trembling whenever it remembers the flames.

In the cafe

You catch up with

countries elegizing countries,

Along with a stain of blood.

March 2018

Translated from Arabic by: Saleh Razzouk& Philip Terman

*poet from Syria