Agha - Call me Ishmael tonight: a book of ghazals

Contents CALL ME ISHMAEL TONIGHT I must go back briefly to a place I have loved to tell you those you will efface I have loved. The only language of loss left in the world is Arabic These words were said to me in a language not Arabic. Ancestors, youve left me a plot in the family graveyard Why must I look, in your eyes, for prayers in Arabic? Majnoon, his clothes ripped, still weeps for Laila. O, this is the madness of the desert, his crazy Arabic. Who listens to Ishmael? Even now he cries out: Abraham, throw away your knives, recite a psalm in Arabic. From exile Mahmoud Darwish writes to the world: Youll all pass between the fleeting words of Arabic.

The sky is stunned, its become a ceiling of stone. I tell you it must weep. So kneel, pray for rain in Arabic. At an exhibition of Mughal miniatures, such delicate calligraphy: Kashmiri paisleys tied into the golden hair of Arabic. The Koran prophesied a fire of men and stones. Well, its all now come true, as it was said in the Arabic.

When Lorca died, they left the balcony open and saw: his qasidas braided, on the horizon, into knots of Arabic. Memory is no longer confused, it has a homeland Says Shammas: Territorialize each confusion in a graceful Arabic. Where there were homes in Deir Yassein, youll see dense forests That village was razed. Theres no sign of Arabic. I too, O Amichai, saw the dresses of beautiful women. And everything else, just like you, in Death, Hebrew, and Arabic.

They ask me to tell them what Shahid means Listen: it means The Beloved in Persian, witness in Arabic. Did we run out of things or just a name for you? Above us the sun doubles its acclaim for you. Negative sun or negative shade pulled from the ground... and the image brought in one ornate frame for you. At my every word they cry, Who the hell are you? What would you reply if they thus sent Fame to you? What a noise the sentences make writing themselves Heres every word that we used as a flame for you. I remember your wine in my springtime of sorrow.

Now the world lies broken. Is it the same for you? Because in this dialect the eyes are crossed or quartz, A STATUE A RAZOR A FACT I exclaim for you. The birthplace of written language is bombed to nothing. How neat, dear America, is this game for you? The angel of history wears all expressions at once. What will you do? Look, his wings are aflame for you. For you. For you.

A pity I dont know if youre guilty of something! I wouldwithout your knowingtake the blame for you. Still for many days the rain will continue to fall... A voice will say, Im burning, God, in shame for You. Something like smoke rises from the snuffed-out distance... Whose house did that fire find which once came for you? Gods dropped the scales. (FOR MICHAEL PALMER) Where should we go after the last frontiers,
where should the birds fly after the last sky? MAHMOUD DARWISH In Jerusalem a dead phones dialed by exiles. (FOR MICHAEL PALMER) Where should we go after the last frontiers,
where should the birds fly after the last sky? MAHMOUD DARWISH In Jerusalem a dead phones dialed by exiles.

You learn your strange fate: you were exiled by exiles. You open the heart to list unborn galaxies. Dont shut that folder when Earth is filed by exiles. Before Night passes over the wheat of Egypt, let stones be leavened, the bread torn wild by exiles. Crucified Mansoor was alone with the Alone: Gods lonelinessjust Hiscompiled by exiles. By the Hudson lies Kashmir, brought from Palestine It shawls the piano, Bach beguiled by exiles.

Tell me whos tonight the Physician of Sick Pearls? Only you as you sit, Desert child, by exiles. Match Majnoon (he kneels to pray on a wine-stained rug) or prayer will be nothing, distempered mild by exiles. Even things that are true can be proved. Even they? Swear not by Art but, dear Oscar Wilde, by exiles. Dont weep, well drown out the Calls to Prayer, O Saqi Ill raise my glass before wine is defiled by exiles. Wasafter the last skythis the fashion of fire: autumns mist pressed to ashes styled by exiles? If my enemys alone and his arms are empty, give him my heart silk-wrapped like a child by exiles.

Will you, Beloved Stranger, ever witness Shahid two destinies at last reconciled by exiles? (FOR EDWARD W. SAID) I say This, after all, is the trick of it all when suddenly you say, Arabic of it all. After Algebra there was Geometryand then Calculus But Id already failed the arithmetic of it all. White men across the U.S. love their wives curries I say O No! to the turmeric of it all. a privileged moment.... a privileged moment....

Then what keeps youand mefrom being sick of it all? The telephones work, but Im still cut off from you. We star in America, fast epic of it all. What shapes galaxies and keeps them from flying apart? Theres that missing mass, the black magic of it all. What makes yours the rarest edition is just this: its bound in human skin, final fabric of it all. Im smashed, fine Enemy, in your isolate mirror. Why the diamond display thenin publicof it all? Before the palaver ends, hear the sparrows songs, the quick quick quick, O the quick of it all.

For the suicidally beautiful, autumn now starts. Their fathers heroes, boys gallop, kick off it all. The sudden storm swept its ice across the great plains. How did you find me, then, in the thick of it all? Across the world one aches for New York, but to long for New York in New Yorks most tragic of it all. For Shahid too the night went quickly as it came After that, old friend, came the music of it all. (FOR ANTHONY LACAVARO) Feel the patients heart
Poundingoh please, this once JAMES MERRILL Ill do what I must if Im bold in real time.

A refugee, Ill be paroled in real time. Cool evidence clawed off like shirts of hellfire? A former existence untold in real time... The one you would choose: were you led then by him? What longing, O Yaar, is controlled in real time? Each syllable sucked under waves of our earth The funeral love comes to hold in real time! They left him alive so that he could be lonely The god of small things is not consoled in real time. Please afterwards empty my pockets of keys Its hell in the city of gold in real time. Gods angels again arefor Satan!forlorn. Salvation was bought but sin sold in real time.

And who is the terrorist, who the victim? Well know if the country is polled in real time. Behind a door marked DANGER are being unwound the prayers my friend had enscrolled in real time. The throat of the rearview and sliding down it the Street of Farewells now unrolled in real time. I heard the incessant dissolving of silk I felt my heart growing so old in real time. Her heart must be ash where her body lies burned. (FOR DANIEL HALL) In a mansion once of love I lit a chandelier of fire... (FOR DANIEL HALL) In a mansion once of love I lit a chandelier of fire...

I stood on a stair of water; I stood on a stair of fire. When, to a new ghost, I recited, Is That What You Are, at the windows in the knives he combed his hair of fire. You have remained with me even in the missing of you. Could a financier then ask me for a new share of fire? I keep losing this letter to the gods of abandon. Wont you tell me how you found itin what hemisphere of fire? Someone stirs, after decades, in a glass mountains ruins. Is Death a cry from an age that was a frozen year of fire? I have brought my life here where it must have been once, my wings, still hope and grief, but singed by a courtier of fire.