Poèmes en langue anglaise - Beirut

Beirut

Where's Beirut of yesterday?
The City that was keeping big with fate
The precursor of religious pride in the east,
Where the origins of thought
Opened the purdah of mind
To teach the world
The true meaning of brotherhood and love,
Where is the Beirut of yesterday?
Where's Beirut. O where are the universities
               The hospitals the skyscrapers the banks
               The churches the mosques the domes the spires
               The prosperous and busy streets?

What a painful memory is left today,
Of shadows standing walls in our grieving eyes,
Reduced to heaps of prehistoric mounds,
Inhabited by the whimpering owls at night
And far stretching skeins of eagles at sunrise,
Gyrating with hunting eyes overhead in flight.
Swooping down, enervated by the stench of the dead,
Turning tail and, up devouring our patience
And so we gaze at our calamity.
Waiting for the world to give us a hand
But the world was cock eyed, deaf and blind.

Never mind. history will record the crime
And timing time timely will avenge blood for blood,
Just to make the balance sheet right.
And I stand here on the highest mound
To spit now and every year once on the whole world,
To lubricate the tools of its mechanism;
Perhaps it will wheel right
To the palace of Justice
So that the people on earth
May enjoy their safety tomorrow.
                                                August 12, 1982
                                                 Jawdat Haydar

Poèmes en langue anglaise - Beirut

Beirut

Where's Beirut of yesterday?
The City that was keeping big with fate
The precursor of religious pride in the east,
Where the origins of thought
Opened the purdah of mind
To teach the world
The true meaning of brotherhood and love,
Where is the Beirut of yesterday?
Where's Beirut. O where are the universities
               The hospitals the skyscrapers the banks
               The churches the mosques the domes the spires
               The prosperous and busy streets?

What a painful memory is left today,
Of shadows standing walls in our grieving eyes,
Reduced to heaps of prehistoric mounds,
Inhabited by the whimpering owls at night
And far stretching skeins of eagles at sunrise,
Gyrating with hunting eyes overhead in flight.
Swooping down, enervated by the stench of the dead,
Turning tail and, up devouring our patience
And so we gaze at our calamity.
Waiting for the world to give us a hand
But the world was cock eyed, deaf and blind.

Never mind. history will record the crime
And timing time timely will avenge blood for blood,
Just to make the balance sheet right.
And I stand here on the highest mound
To spit now and every year once on the whole world,
To lubricate the tools of its mechanism;
Perhaps it will wheel right
To the palace of Justice
So that the people on earth
May enjoy their safety tomorrow.
                                                August 12, 1982
                                                 Jawdat Haydar

Poèmes en langue anglaise - Beirut

Beirut

Where's Beirut of yesterday?
The City that was keeping big with fate
The precursor of religious pride in the east,
Where the origins of thought
Opened the purdah of mind
To teach the world
The true meaning of brotherhood and love,
Where is the Beirut of yesterday?
Where's Beirut. O where are the universities
               The hospitals the skyscrapers the banks
               The churches the mosques the domes the spires
               The prosperous and busy streets?

What a painful memory is left today,
Of shadows standing walls in our grieving eyes,
Reduced to heaps of prehistoric mounds,
Inhabited by the whimpering owls at night
And far stretching skeins of eagles at sunrise,
Gyrating with hunting eyes overhead in flight.
Swooping down, enervated by the stench of the dead,
Turning tail and, up devouring our patience
And so we gaze at our calamity.
Waiting for the world to give us a hand
But the world was cock eyed, deaf and blind.

Never mind. history will record the crime
And timing time timely will avenge blood for blood,
Just to make the balance sheet right.
And I stand here on the highest mound
To spit now and every year once on the whole world,
To lubricate the tools of its mechanism;
Perhaps it will wheel right
To the palace of Justice
So that the people on earth
May enjoy their safety tomorrow.
                                                August 12, 1982
                                                 Jawdat Haydar