مينا ناجي's Blog

سوف أتفجَّع دائماً -أتسمعينني؟- من أجلكِ، وحدك، في الفرودس.


I

القدرُ، مثل مُحوِّل القطارات، سيحيد
في اتجاه آخر خطوط الكف
وسيرضخ الوقت ذات لحظة.

كيف لا، والبشر يحبون بعضهم.

سوف تماثل السماء دواخلنا
وتضرب البراءة العالم
بحدّة الموت الأسود.

II

أبكي الشمس وأبكي السنوات التي تأتي
من دوننا وأغني للأخريات اللائي مررن
إن كانوا.

تناجت الأجساد وانزلقت المراكب بعذوبة
رمشت الجيتارات تحت المياه
بالـ "صدقني" وبالـ "لا تفعل"
مرّة في الهواء، ومرّة في الموسيقى.

الحيوانان الصغيران، يدانا
اللتان تاقتا إلى تسلق بعضهما خِلسةً
زهرية اللقلقي عند بوابات الساحة المفتوحة
وشذرات البحر التي تجمعت
على الحوائط الحجرية الجافة، خلف الأسيجة؛
شقيق النعمان المطروح في يدك
يرتجف لونه الأرجواني ثلاث مرات لثلاثة أيام
فوق الشلالات.
.
لو كان هذا حقيقياً أغني
الشعاع الخشبي والنسيج المزركش
على الحائط، عروس البحر ذات الشعر المحلول
القطة التي شاهدتنا في الظلام.

طفلٌ برائحة العنبر والصليب الأحمر
في وقت الغسق عند صخور يتعذر الوصول إليها
أبكي ثوباً لمستُه فأتى العالم إليّ.

III

هكذا أتحدث عنك وعنّي.

لأنني أحبك وفي الحب أعرف
أن أدخل كالبدرٍ
من كل مكان، إلى قدمك الصغيرة بين الملاءات الفضفاضة
أن أقطف بتلات الياسمين والقدرة
وأنت نائمة، على النفخ فأخذك
عبر الممرات اللامعة وقنطرات البحر السريّة
الأشجار المُنوَّمة بعناكب تلمع فضّةً.

.
سمعت عنكِ الأمواج
كيف تلاطفين، كيف تقبّلين
كيف تهمسين بالـ "ماذا" والـ "إي"
حول العنق، الخليج
دائماً نحن النور والظل.

دائماً أنتِ النجمة الصغيرة ودائماً أنا الزورق المظلم
دائماً أنتِ الميناء وأنا المصباح الأيمن
الرصيف المبتل ولمعة المجاذيف.

عالياً عند المنزل ذي تعريشة الكَرْم
الورود المربوطة، المياه التي تبرد
دائماً أنتِ التمثال الحجري ودائماً أنا الظل النامي.
.

المصراع الموارب أنتِ، وأنا الريح التي تفتحه
لأنني أحبك وأحبك،
دائماً أنتِ العملة وأنا النقش الذي يحدد قيمتها:

هكذا الليل، عصف الريح هكذا
القطرة في الهواء، هكذا السكون
البحر الطاغي في كل الأنحاء
قبة السماء المرصعة بالنجوم
مثل أوهن أنفاسك.

لم يبق لديّ شئ آخر،
بين الجدران الأربعة، السقف، الأرضيّة
إلا أن أستصرخكِ فيخبطني صوتي
أن أشمّك فيغضب الناس
لأن ما هو غير مجرب ومجلوب من مكان آخر
لا يطيقه البشر، والوقت مبكر، هل تسمعينني؟
الوقت لايزال مبكراً في هذا العالم، يا حبيبتي

للحديث عنكِ وعنّي.


IV

الوقت لا يزال مبكراً في هذا العالم، أتسمعينني
الوحوش لم تروَض بعد، أتسمعينني
دمي الضائع وسكيني، أتسمعينني، الحادة
مثل كبش يمرق عبر السماوات
مكسراً أغصان النجوم، أتسمعينني
إنه أنا، أتسمعينني
أحبك، أتسمعينني
أضمكِ وأخذكِ وألبسكِ
عباءة زفاف أوفيليا البيضاء، أتسمعينني
أين تتركينني وأين تذهبين ومن، أتسمعينني
يمسك بيدكِ فوق السيول؟
.
الأعراش الضخمة والحمم البركانية
سيأتي اليوم، أتسمعينني
الذي يدفنانا فيه، أتسمعينني،
وآلاف السنين بعدها، سيحولانا، أتسمعينني
إلي حفريات ساطعة
تبرق عليهم قسوة الناس، أتسمعينني
وتنثرنا آلاف القطع.

في المياه واحدة بواحدة، أتسمعينني
أعدّ حصاواتي المُرّة، أتسمعينني
والوقت كنيسة كبيرة، هل تسمعينني
حيث بكت ذات مرة هيئات القديسين
بدموع حقيقية
تنفتح الأجراس في السماء، أتسمعينني
معبر عميق لأجتازه
تننظرالملائكة بالشموع والمزامير الجنائزيّة
لن أذهب لأي مكان، أتسمعينني
إما لا أحد أو نحن معاً، أتسمعينني
وردة العاصفة هذه، أتسمعينني، والحب
مرة وللأبد سنقتطفها
ولن يتأتي لها أن تُورد في مكان آخر، أتسمعينني
أو علي أرض أخرى، على نجم آخر، أتسمعينني
لا توجد تربة، لا يوجد هواء،
كاللذين لمسناهما، أتسمعينني
وما من بستاني كان أوفر حظاً
في إخراج مثل هذه الوردة من شتاء كهذا، هل تسمعينني
ومن رياح شمالية كهذه، نحن فقط، أتسمعينني
وسط البحر
فقط من الرغبة المجردة للحب، أتسمعينني
أنشأنا جزيرة كاملة، هل تسمعينني
بكهوف وقمم ومنحدرات مُزهرة

أنصتي، أنصتي
من يتكلم في المياه ومن يبكي، أتسمعينني
من ينادي الآخر من يصيح، أتسمعينني
إنه أنا من يصيح، إنه أنا من يبكي، أتسمعينني
أحبك أحبك، هل تسمعينني.

V

تحدثتُ عنكِ في الأزمنة الغابرة
مع المربيات الحكيمات والمحاربين القدامى
عن ما يمكن أن يكون سبب
حزنك الوحشي
عن ألق المياه المرتعشة على وجهكِ
ولماذا، أتعجب، يحتم عليّ أن أقترب منك
أنا الذي لا يريد الحب، بل يريد الريح
بل يريد عَدْو البحر المنتصب المكشوف.

وعنكِ لم يسمع عنكِ
عنكِ لا الغُبَيْرَة ولا الفِطر
على مرتفعات كريت لا شىء
من أجلك فقط رضى الله أن يقود يدي.

هنا وهناك، بحرص على طول
ساحل الوجه، الخلجان، الشَعر
على التل يموج إلى اليسار.

جسدكِ في وضعية شجرة الصنوبر الوحيدة
عيون الفخر وقاع البحر
الشفاف، في المنزل بالخزانة الصينية القديمة
الرباط الأصفر وخشب السرو
وحدي منتظراً لأرى أين ستظهرين أولاً

بالأعلى في الشُرفة العُلويّة
أم في الخلف على بلاطات الساحة
بحصان القديس وبيضة عيد القيامة

كما لو من جدارية خَرِبَة
عظيمة كما أرادت لكِ الحياة الصغيرة
أن تضعي في الشمعة الضئيلة الوميض البركاني الهادر

فلا يرى أو يسمع أحد
أي شىء في الخلاء، أو البيوت الخربة،
ولا السلف المدفون في النهاية البعيدة لحائط الفناء،
عنكِ، ولا عن المرأة العجوز بكل أعشابها.

من أجلك، فقط أنا، ربما والموسيقى
التي أبعدها داخلي لكن تعود أقوى
من أجلك الصدر ذو الإثني-عشر عاماً غير المشكل
الذي واجه المستقبل بفوهته الحمراء
من أجلك، مثل دبوس، الرائحة المرّة
التي تخبط الجسد وتخترق الذاكرة
وها هي التربة، ها هي الحمائم، ها هي أرضنا القديمة.


VI

لقد رأيتُ الكثير والعالم في عقلي يبدو أكثر جمالاً
أكثر جمالاً في الأبخرة الذهبيّة
الحجر الحاد، أكثر جمالاً
الأزرق الداكن للمضايق والأسقف عبر الأمواج
أكثر جمالاً، الأشعة حيث تمرين دون خطو
لا تقهرين، فوق تلال البحر، مثل إلهة ساموثراس

هكذا رأيتكِ وهذا يكفي
لكي يبرأ كُل الزمن
الخندق الذي يتركه مروركِ
يتتبعك مثل دُولفين غر

وروحي تلهو بالأبيض واللازوردي!

النصر، النصر حيث هزمتُ
أمام الحب ومعاً
مع شجرة الحرير وزهرة الآلام
اذهبي، اذهبي، ودعيني أضيع

وحدي، ودعي الشمس التي تحملينها تكون وليدة
وحدي، ودعيني أكون الوطن الذي ينتحب
دعيها تكون الكلمة التي بعثتها لتحمل ورقة الغار إليكِ
وحدي، الرياح قوية ووحيدة الحصى
المدورة في غمز الأعماق المظلمة
الصياد الذي أمسك بالفردوس ورماه مرة أخرى في الزمن.

VII

في الفردوس اخترتُ جزيرةً
تماثلك وبيتاً علي البحر

بسرير كبير وباب صغير
رميتُ صديً في الأعماق السحيقة
لأري نفسي كل صباح عندما أنهض

نصف لأراكِ تمرين عبر المياه
ونصف لأبكيكِ في الفردوس.


----------------------------------------

* كلمة المونوجرام تعني رمز كتابي مكوَّن من أكثر من حرف، وضمن ما يقابلها في الخط العربي الطُغراء. (المونوجرام) قصيدة حب صدرت في كتيب منفصل عام 1972 للشاعر اليوناني أوديسياس إيليتيس الحائز على جائزة نوبل في الآداب عام 1979، والذي يعتبر من أهم ثلاثة شخصيات في الشعر اليوناني الحديث بجانب الشاعرين جورج سيفيريس ويانيس ريتسوس، وهي من أشهر أعماله بجانب ديوان (مستحقٌ هو) الصادر عام 1959.

Selections from Mina Nagy’s collection أسبوع الآلام [Passion Week], published in PDF format and available in its entirety here, with cover and layout by Youssef Rakha. As Mina explains in the foreword, the poems follow the pattern of the Coptic liturgy for Passion Week, or Holy Week as it’s otherwise known, hence the headings. The Common Burial Prayer is a mass funeral rite for all those who die during the course of the week. Mina has also published another poetry collection entitled سحر حقيقي (Dar Al Ain, 2011) [A Real Magic] and a short story collection الجندب يلهو حرا في شوارع القاهرة (Dar Kalima, 2013) [The grasshopper frolics free in the streets of Cairo]



From the Common Burial Prayer



I say to thee:

Fish, our opportunities let slip,

That we hook on Time’s angle;

Clutching them in our hands, aquiver,

We gaze into their half-dead eyes

On the verge of tears

At our faces’ misery mirrored back

Then cast them into the water

And start to weep, for real.



Fish, our wretched thoughts

Agleam with scales that leave them gnarled

That nearly block the blood vessels to our brains;

Just once, we wish, they’d throw up a ring

Or spare us the taste of salt water in our throats.



Fish. Our drowned souls.



I say to thee:

Alone we are alone and all around us, alone.



***



Sermon



I

For a moment, coming back from the car, I rejoiced, because the dead do not remember something they’ve forgotten and so return, place key in keyhole and check their hair lies smooth before the mirror. My God! The air’s on fire. Weather fit for meeting an ex-lover and shaking her by the hand, for pondering life’s meaning as you stroll, for laughter, for pain. I want to be in shirt and trousers, leg up on the wall around a lift shaft, penning a verse with soft, beautiful hair and beside me, bottles of milk; to get angry at the world and sometimes say, “Fuck life.” So hot, dear God! When will mercy come? All I hear in my veins is s c r e a m i n g.



II

Colour should get stronger in the weave, not run.

Things should pull together when the world falls down and falls apart.

The trees’ green, too, bleeds from the edge of the leaves. The trunks’ veins twist and overlay each other in the air.

The clouds are not in their heavens but run along a brute wall before me, shape forms ceaselessly falling away.

The searchlight shines its light within—I cannot kill these forms or check their collapse.

From some unseen place the cup spills out hot water—a wingless butterfly flits with a frightening whine.

Light piles on the table. Sounds beats the ceiling and rains in pieces on my head.

S c r e a m i n g



III

They say my brain’s gone on vacation. The clock’s hands and calendar play their guessing game with me and I lose every time.

Love is now a universe entire inside my head.

I feel a great emptiness that makes me fill the void in my head with vast quantities of liquid soap.

Some bastard outside daubs a weeping animal on the wall. I poke my head out of the window.

S c r e a m i n g



IV

Returning from a distant trail. Oh, hope! I saw eleven planets and…

S c r e a m i n g



***



Homily



The one who taught me that identity’s a trap

Said the solution to my agony would be to be another person

And doesn’t think that I would want that.

I didn’t tell him: I hate myself,

But rather, faintly hoarse,

That I was not as wedded to my identity

As he might suppose.

His voice on the phone was like someone murmuring to a songbird,

Telling me Von Trier suffers just the same but lives with it and works on.

After ending the call, my hands on the wheel,

A facetious question comes to mind:

“So does your arm hurt you very much, Von Trier my boy?”



I feel that my life is as temporary,

Long and tiring as the days of the Great Fast.



***



Sermon



A man, passed out in the street. His elderly friends swap worried looks, check pulse, grip arm. My friend and I for the hundredth and tenth time trying to get a hand on forgetfulness through the warring smoke, sitting, the café’s clear glass between us and the man, his friends attempting to massage his chest; one showing signs of alarm. I make an effort to pull myself together and write. They failed to revive him and at the arrival of a doctor—sitting by chance nearby—picked him up and left. In hash rapture my friend sung to me a song of the innocent refused entry at the gates of the world. Let us pray, that the stockpile not burn.



***



Homily



We woke today

Empty handed

But we fought to the last.

We did not play by the rules;

The rules played with us.



We’re the ones who run from the megastores,

Who run from revolutions of the masses,

From the malls,

From love;

We’re the ones who fear the moving moon,

Who yank down the corpse’s underwear at the crime scene

So it may be witnessed as fully as can be,

The ones who hate themselves

And their lives,

Who love life greatly;

We wait for our friends to cease loving those who pass through their lives

That we might;

We are the ones who die each day.



Suddenly, fire flares in veins.

The runner thinks he’s pulled a muscle,

The dancer that he’s dizzy:

That’s why the earth has lurched beneath his feet.

But it’s an earthquake:

Headlong everywhere,

I’m in and out of bars that pump music at folk that pay it no mind,

Nor me.

Old squares,

Headlong,

The terror of streetlights

And people I don’t know,

Headlong,

The terror of being trapped indoors

In monasteries pitch-black by night

And the moon, full;

Headlong.



The sensation that a time of terror has been ushered in

In war with hidden enemies

Is truer than this table and your two hands…

Mental breakdown

World explodes



I tried Christianity without Christ

Faith without god

Sex without love

Love without a lover

Lovers without affection and

None of it was beautiful to me

Or sated my soul.



I live to tell

But have nothing to tell

But pain and grief

In anticipation of my tale.



I go from room to room

Searching for a window from which to flee

But have found nothing till now;

Soon I will despair,

Yet perhaps, at the hundredth attempt

I’ll chance across a crack in a wall.



Let us attack meaning and violate it,

Flay the straight course,

Make for a new horizon.



My first day out I’ll fetch me a parrot.



One of the laws of piracy that I’ll lay down: No respect for the clever cheat or the noble fool.

Another: There shall be no religious symbols on board my ship, other than diamond crosses and captured priests.

Another: Women are common property of the crew, with the exception of mine.

Another: It is forbidden to kill except in battle or in self-defence; whosoever kills otherwise shall be thrown into the sea forthwith.

Another: Music shall be performed live except in rare cases; sad and sentimental whining shall be forbidden and any man on board who listens to such shall have his neck broken.

Another: There shall be no clocks on the ship nor anything that tells the time.



We shall not play by the rules

We shall play with them.

Literary Magazine Interviewer: First question. Do you see yourself as a “promising young writer”?

Promising Young Writer: That depends. Do you mean “promising” or “young”? You can easily apply both to me, or dismiss them. It’s a matter of perspective.

LMI: Let’s see, then. How old are you and what have you written that’s promising?

PYW: Well, I’m 28. So far I’ve written two books of poetry and one of short stories. I don’t like to evaluate my own work. It depresses me. And you can’t be objective about it. But it’s easy to say that I like only two poems in my first book, the rest belonging to the realm of lame beginnings. Maybe I will have a view of my two later books after some time. I guess it takes time to see your own writings as external objects so you can evaluate them as you evaluate other things. Actually, I admire and hate my own work with equal force, and that applies to everything related to myself. I also finished my first novel, the first part of a trilogy. I’m in the process of publishing it now.


LMI: Okay, but what about the third term, “writer”. Do you see yourself as writer or, to put it in a smarter way, do you believe the term “writer” is an identity?

PYW: When you get confused about this, you can always go back to basics. I mean, a writer is someone who writes, right? Things only start to get complicated when you realise how this basic definition applies to a wide variety of unrelated professions that involve that activity. But what about other activities in the writer’s own life. Are you still a writer while you’re taking a shit, for example? While you’re having sex or coming up with the answers during a quiz show? To me, an individual identity along the lines of “writer” is a political move. Sometimes you need it and sometimes it makes a fool of you. One of my greatest personal fears is to be ridiculous.

I like to think of being a writer as an ethical obligation. I mean, dedicating myself to writing. I know a lot of people who have a talent for expressing themselves through the medium of words, but what distinguishes the real writers among them, if real writers is what you want to call it, is dedication. To dedicate your vital life force to forming and enhancing your own writing. But at the same time I see the title “writer” as a persona, a mask that you can put on which encourages you to keep going. Suddenly, at the age of 26, I stopped seeing myself as poet. I made a conscious decision to stop writing poems, because as time went on, the question of whether I was a poet or not had become more and more irrelevant. It almost annoys me now when someone presents me as a poet. I’m wearing the mask of the novelist right now, writing novels, but at some point I know I will take it off and wear some other mask.

Now if you asked me why a person should wear masks, I would say that life is unbearable in itself, it needs masks, and these masks reflect the possibilities that spring out of experiencing the unbearable. These possibilities, we like to call hope. Maybe one day I will be the most prominent writer of my generation. Maybe I will be world famous. Maybe I will feel free and unburdened. Maybe I will meet the love of my life and live happily ever after, and so on… Without these possibilities, humanity, as a self-aware race, would annihilate itself. Not that it isn’t doing it anyway.

Another personal reason is that I want to live many lives. I always feel that I’m missing out, one life can never be enough, my own real life in particular is not enough. So the masks are there to make up for that. Each mask can be a whole life if you wear it with enough conviction. But the trick is to remember that it’s still just a mask. It’s like children playing and taking their play very seriously.

LMI: So what is it about the persona of the writer that drives you to take on that “ethical obligation”?

PYW: I first developed this fascination when I was young, really young, like 9 or 10. I was fascinated by the idea of complete control over fictional characters. You are like god to them. You can kill or keep whoever you want. You can make them handsome, ugly, smart, stupid, strong, weak. This feeling of mastery and limitless power fascinated me.

A few years later, I was struck by the by how the world in a film or a book could be complete and closed off. I remember the kick I got from the Goosebumps series. It wasn’t the moments of horror that attracted me but presence of an 11-year-old kid at the start of summer hanging out with friends eating icecream and going to the movies, falling in love with his slightly older and beautiful friend. In a sense these moments in themselves are dull and unattractive, they need the supernatural cast them in a compelling light. I remember writing my first novel at this time, with a pencil in a Disney notebook, imitating the worlds of Goosebumps. I was devastated when I found out my mother threw it out in the garbage. Maybe this was my first conscious experience of a deep loss.

A few years later, the same fascination resurfaced during my religious phase, in the desire to find out the secret of life. I remember I had this idea to write an extremely long novel in the form of the diaries of a series of persons from consecutive generations, starting with a young girl living in the 16th century in England. I never got past 20 pages as far as I can remember.

Another few years later, I fell under the influence of the Young Adult writers Ahmed Khalid Tawfik and Nabil Farouk. I had a miserable adolescence, and I wanted to compensate for my screwed-up using the power of the imagination, to experience all that I longed to do and couldn’t.

I guess my fascination now consists of all these stages combined.

LMI: Was there a specific moment when you made a conscious decision to be a writer?

PYW: As I said, recently I’ve see it recently as a question of personas. Life circumstances – and surprises – as well subjective inclinations tell you which mask to wear. When I was 18 I wanted to write poems, stories and novels besides becoming a Communication Engineer, among other things. I had this idea for a novel about a teenager going through a lot of different experiences, but I knew that trying to write it would be biting off more than I could chew. So I concentrated on poetry and published my first poetry book after 6 years. They were poems trying to grasp personal sensations, tiny and inexpressible, which I later saw judged to be naively metaphysical. I still felt I was unable to write a novel, and I had different ideas for writing, then through a writing workshop with the writer and poet Youssef Rakha, I managed to write the stories. I saw the process as a way to both use the ideas I had and train for the novel.

After that I decided to dedicate time to poetry again, to write my magnum opus, a great work equivalent in some sense to The Divine Comedy, but in a contemporary and negative register. I was to wait a long time before I wrote it. But then I fell into a deep depression and couldn’t manage to get out of it except by writing my second collection of poems, my darkest work to date. It was made up of bits and pieces I’d written along the way, a total of 75,000 words, finally whittled down to the 7000 words of Passion Week. The moment I was done with Passion Week I felt I was finished with poetry. I wanted to write the novel, but I had to finish my neverending college education first. A year later I finally graduated and started the novel, almost 10 years after it first came to me. Through these 10 years it expanded to a trilogy, and went through many radical changes. But I think it still has the same core as the book conceived of by the 18-year-old:

To do things I couldn’t do, to compensate.

LMI: Can you give us a hint of this trilogy or at least the first part?

PYW: Oh, yes. The first part is called Wingless. It’s a series of letters from an unnamed protagonist to his ex-lover re-telling her what happened between them from his point of view, but the letters interweaved with another dramatic line: a couple from Paris, a painter and theatrical and contemporary dance director. It deals with the subjects of love, failed relationships and psychological illness.

LMI: Are we to see it in bookstores soon?

PYW: I don’t know yet, cross your fingers.

LMI: Do you have anything to add?

PYW: Yes, fuck you.

LMI: Why?

PYW: I always wanted to end an interview with a “fuck you”, and what better opportunity to do it than an imaginary interview? I’m also going to make you thank me.

LMI: Thank you very much indeed, Promising Young Writer.