Nothing
By Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi
Reading from Southbank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus festival, 2012.
Translated from the Arabic by Sarah Maguire and Atef Alshaer for The Poetry Translation Centre.
Nothing
Before you start reading,
put down your pen:
consider the ink,
how it comprehends bleeding
Learn
from the distant horizon
and from the narrowing eyes
the expansiveness of vision
and the treachery of hands
Do not blame me – do not blame anyone –
if you die before you read on
before blood is understood
