Sinan Antoon
Nacido en Bagdad en 1967, es hijo de padre iraquí y madre americana. Se diplomó en literatura inglesa por la Universidad de Bagdad en 1990, un año más tarde se traslada a los Estados Unidos con motivo de la guerra del Golfo. Actualmente es profesor en la Gallatin School de la Universidad de Nueva York. Fue finalista con esta novela en el Internacional Prize for Arabic Fiction de 2013.
LIBROS:
The Poetics of the Obscene: Ibn al-Hajjaj and Sukhf, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013
Ya Maryam (Ave Maria), Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2012
The Baghdad Blues, Harbor Mountain Press, 2007, ISBN 978097860094
I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody. City Lights Books. 2007. ISBN 978-0-87286-457-3.
The Corpse Washer. Yale University Press. 30 July 2013. ISBN 978-0-300-19505-7.
CUERDA
1
los dedos del músico trepan
por las escalas musicales
y me llevan
a las nubes
luego bajan
seguidas por Dios
que llora
y se disculpa por todo
2
las cuerdas del laúd
tiran de mi alma
fuera del pozo del silencio
llenan mi corazón
con el azul del mar
agitan mis ramas
me puntean
dispersándome lejos
a una isla
fuera del tiempo
dentro de mi corazón
3
este cordón umbilical
se extiende desde mi corazón
hasta las orillas del Éufrates
lo corto cada mañana
pero, de noche,
la nostalgia
lo remienda
4
un hilo
que llueve del ojo de la aguja
en una noche
cuya negrura
fatiga a las velas
que van contando sus minutos
un hilo usado por una madre
para remendar una camisa
que aún recuerda el olor
del preso
al que lleva esperando
once otoños
…
una camisa
que nadie se pondrá jamás
5
un estante
en los archivos del corazón
en el que las muertes pospuestas
se amontonan
junto a los rumores
sobre la felicidad
6
la línea fronteriza
que atraviesa las provincias
de la nostalgia
entre un país
que nunca fue
y un país
que nunca será -
cada vez que la imaginación
lo deja atrás
allí
la historia
lo trae de vuelta
aquí
7
el sollozo de un hombre
que se agarra al hilo
que corre desde sus dedos
hacia una cometa blanca
que aún planea
en los cielos de su infancia
fuera de la celda
en la noche de su ejecución
8
un hilo de seda
suspira
y piensa en escaparse
de un sujetador negro
…
está cansado
y no quiere impedir
que los dos pechos
se besen
9
un rayo invisible
se apodera de mi corazón
el aroma de una mujer
que habría pasado junto a mí
dentro de veinte años
si no hubiera muerto
en la última guerra
10
la última línea
de un manuscrito
cuya quema
se ha retrasado
ocho siglos
11
la ruta migratoria
que toma un pájaro insólito
en su última estación
antes de extinguirse
12
la sombra del último árbol de palma
en un huerto en llamas
mientras su fronda peina
el cabello del viento
y es consolado
por el sol
13
tal vez
la cuerda es simplemente
una cuerda
que consuela a los árboles
crucificados en el cuerpo del laúd
o tan solo anhela
otra cuerda
crucificada
en un laúd lejano
— Es un poema de Sinan Antoon (nacido en Bagdad, Iraq, en 1967, instalado en Estados Unidos desde 1991), autor al que tuvimos el lujo y el placer de escuchar durante el congreso de esta semana.
Forma parte de Baghdad Blues, su primer poemario en inglés. Un libro estremecedor en el que la guerra resuena con un eco de pájaros caídos, con un exilio de música triste, con imágenes de insomnio que ya no se pueden borrar de la faz del mundo.
DELVING
The sea is a lexicon
Of blueness
Assiduously read by the sun
Your body, too, is a lexicon
Of my desires
Its first letter
Will take a lifetime
Beirut, April 2003
PHANTASMAGORIA II
Your lips
Are a pink butterfly
Flying
From one word
To another
I run after them
In gardens of silence
Cairo, June 2003
SIFTING
My eyes
Are two sieves
Sifting
Through piles of others
Searching for you
Cairo, August 2003
JUST ANOTHER EVENING
(In Black and You)
1
Your voice floats
Like a sleepy narcissus
On the evening's water
And I am a shore
Thinking of drowning
2
Every touch
Is a white envelope
Hiding tens of letters
Also white
Penned by your nudity
About itself
3
Your shirt
Is an open envelope
Your breasts
Two letters
Always
About to arrive
4
Even the night's fingers
Whisper
As they think
Of undressing you
A SIP
When your fingers embrace
The waist of the glass
A smile awakens
In the dream of a man
Asleep in a distant night
It's been a long day
He's blown his soul
Into many a glass
The jasmine wind on your wrist
Caresses his pillow
When your lips touch the tip of the glass
Thousands of wild horses begin to rush
In his veins
Their whinnying blends
With the wine raining from above
The nude women on horseback
Declare him a hedonistic prophet
But
When you put the glass on the table
He wakes up
Looks at his watch -
In an hour
He will enter a new day
Like a long tunnel
Cairo, August 2003
The above poems have been published in Arabic on www.kikah.com and translated by the author. They are republished here from Banipal No 21.
STRINGS
1
The player's fingers climb
the musical scales
and carry me
to the clouds
then descend
followed by God
who weeps
and apologises
for everything
2
The strings of the oud
pull my soul
from the well of silence
fill my heart
with the sea's blueness
storm my branches
pluck me
scattering me far away
on an island
outside time
inside my heart
3
This umbilical chord
extends from my heart
to the banks of the Euphrates
I sever it every morning
but, at night,
nostalgia
mends it
4
A thread
that rains from the needle's eye
in a night
whose blackness
tires the candles
as they counts its minutes,
a thread used by a mother
to mend a shirt
that still remembers the scent
of the prisoner
she's been waiting for
for eleven autumns
. . .
a shirt
no one will ever wear
5
A shelf
in the heart's archives
where postponed deaths
are stacked
next to rumours
about happiness
6
The border line
across the provinces
of nostalgia
between a country
that never was
and a country
which will never be -
whenever it is pulled away
by imagination
there
history
brings it back
here
7
The sobbing of a man
as he clings to the thread
running from his fingers
towards a white kite
still soaring
in the skies of his childhood
outside the cell
on his execution night
8
a silk thread
sighs
and thinks of eloping
from a black bra
. . .
it is fatigued
and does not want to stop
the two breasts
from kissing
9
An invisible ray
seizes my heart
the scent of a woman
who would be passing by me
twenty years from now
had she not died
in the last war
10
The last line
in a manuscript
whose burning
has been delayed
eight centuries
11
The migration route
taken by a rare bird
in its last season
before extinction
12
The shadow of the last palm tree
in a burning orchard
as its fronds comb
the wind's hair
and it is consoled
by the sun
13
Perhaps
the string is merely
a string
consoling the trees
crucified in the body of the oud
or is it just yearning
for another string
crucified
in a distant oud
Cairo, April-June, 2003
Translated by the poet from his collection Mawshur Muballal bi'l-Hurub [A Prism: Wet with Wars] Merit, Cairo, 2003.
WRINKLES ON THE WIND'S FOREHEAD
1
The wind is a blind mother
stumbling
over the corpses
no shrouds
save the clouds
but the dogs
are much faster
2
The moon is a graveyard
for light
the stars women
wailing
3
The wind was tired
from carrying the coffins
and leaned
against a palm tree
A satellite enquired:
"Where to now?"
the silence
in the wind's cane
murmured:
"Baghdad"
and the palm tree caught fire
4
The soldier's fingers scrape and scrabble,
like question marks
or curving sickles,
they search the belly of the wind
for weapons
. . .
nothing but smoke
and depleted uranium
5
How narrow is this strait
which sleeps
between two wars
but I must cross it
6
My heart is a stork
perched on a distant dome
in Baghdad
its nest made of bones
its sky
of death
7
This is not the first time
myths wash their face
with our blood
Here they are
looking in horizon's mirror
as they don our bones
8
War salivates
Tyrants and historians pant
A wrinkle smiles
on the face of a child
who will play
during a break
between wars
9
The Euphrates
is a long procession
Cities pat its shoulders
as palm trees weep
11
The grave is a mirror
into which the child looks
and dreams:
when will I grow up
and be like my father
. . .
dead?
12
The Tigris and Euphrates
are two strings
in death's lute
and we are songs
. . . or fingers strumming
13
For two and a half wars
I've been here
in this room
whose window is a grave
that I'm afraid of opening
There's a mirror on the wall
and when I stand before it
naked
my bones laugh
as the fingers of death
tickle the door
14
I place an ear
on the belly of this moment
I hear wailing
I place it on another moment
- the same!
Cairo, May-June, 2003
Translated by the poet
The Arabic original was published in the cultural supplement of an-Nahar newspaper, Beirut, August 2003. This translation is republished from Banipal No 18, Autumn 2003.
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