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  |  Re: عبد السلام يسافر في الأحمر ذهابًا وإياب (نص عربي و إنجليزي) (Re: راشد سيد أحمد الشيخ) |  | و هذه ترجمة للقصيدة بعالية وهي أولى محاولاتي لترجمة الشعر
 للضالعين والضالعات في هذا الضرب من ضروب الترجمة أرخي السمع و الحواس
 لنقدهم و تقويمهم لما إجترحت من محاولة
 
 ويقى ودي والعرفان
 
 
 A two way red ticket for Abdul Salamِ
 (A Requiem of Love)
 
 At the southern quarters of town
 Stands reticent and worn-out houses,
 Dim alleyways laden with a chilling tale
 As you pass through,
 Like a gentle breath,
 Swarm of butterflies on your trail
 So doe’s pairs of white doves
 A flock of paradise birds
 Loops and whirl
 Like a hallo of tranquillity
 And a bountiful cloud
 
 There you are; a baobab tree of love and peace,
 Under your cooling shadow, we rest
 Reclining beside us, dreams, hopes
 And many a people crowed
 
 In the northern parts of town
 Within its frowning frontiers
 Muteness and silence leisurely grow,
 A trace of your scent lingers in the air
 And softly disperses away
 Leaving behind broken hearts
 Submerged in salty tears
 Vanquished souls with sadness overflow
 Transfixed forever in a consuming woe
 Your loved ones staring at the abyss of disbelief
 With insomniac eyes filled with pain and grief
 
 O Abdul my friend,
 You stand distinct like a standard-banner
 Peering from the aperture of my memory
 Engraved in gleaming serrations,
 Like an ancient Meroitic pottery.
 
 Halt your saunter Abdul, my friend
 Do not abandon us yet
 Like a munificent phantom and walk
 Before sharing a glass of wine
 And an intelligent talk
 Or heeding your enchanting poetry recitation
 
 Do not leave…. My friend
 Arrest your movement now, and wait
 Do not abscond, please stay
 For the road you are treading on
 Penetrates the jungle of transgression
 The thorny road, that takes you away
 To the swamps of indiscretion
 
 Wait my friend … do not leave us now
 Do not leave on a trip you did not intend
 Without a cordial wave
 Without a glance, chockfull of joy and content
 Or a shadow of your endearing leers
 A unique one amongst us, you are
 A beacon of virtues amid your peers
 Offering those around you
 Lucid visions, eloquent and true
 
 Whenever I think of home, nostalgic and alone
 Nudged by actions, weight down by apathies
 Your placid spectre watches me
 Listening to the radio’s relentless drone
 Heaving menacing and ominous prophecies
 And hopes forlorn
 
 Each time I am jaded, disheartened and alone
 Stares solemnly from the opposite seat
 Your giant spectre, ubiquitous and sweet
 Your bright eyes speaks without voice
 Asking me in an earnest heat:
 Was my blood the rite of passage?
 Did death decree my death, clear and aloud?
 Or is it this opaque death shroud
 Soaked in funeral perfumes separate us now?
 Or did you – in your mystical rope -
 Rode the stallion of wind into the opposite direction of hope?
 Or are siestas – tranquil as they are –
 Made from the same fabric of death?
 
 How much we need you now
 To summon endurance onto us:
 How genuinely we need you now
 As death looms over the horizon,
 Without fail
 As musty air with horses neighs, avow,
 Clinking swords set to assail
 And a storm of dejection engulfs the land
 Pierced by venomous archery
 Flaccid, our land, tired and frail
 Plummeting into panic and disarray
 Alas, the harvest of misfortune
 Abundant and sundry
 
 In every jungle and on each mount
 Prophesies of mayhem and demolition
 While we need your wisdom and bravery
 In this era of anguish and misery
 When (Things fall apart)
 Lest we patiently endure the road to Calvary
 Where light adjusts its tune,
 Rose-buds harmonise its prose,
 Trees perform its songs
 And time, its compass calibrate
 On the (Thing) called eternal wait.
 
 In our evening reunions,
 I furtively toast your health,
 In a jovial yell and a cheerful roar
 Slurp the glass you extend to me
 Poured From the tub of apathy
 Brewed and matured by time
 In the mysterious tavern on the other shore
 Then we resume our stalled conversations
 About arts, banks and dubious policies
 About inexplicable TV programmes
 Idiotic political invocations
 About misleading news and media plots
 About senile tyrants and brutal despots
 About love and theology,
 About medicine and comedy
 About death, poetry and ideology
 About life
 The whole life
 Without confines or boundaries
 
 O treasured friend Abdul Salam
 We miss your sharp and judicious mind
 In this ashen year of (ashes)
 In this precarious juncture
 Of perilous and futile clashes
 Where days cloaked in mourning colours
 And nights packed with tedium and bore
 Utterly soaked in sadness and terrors
 And an expanding melancholy without shore
 
 Overcome it, we try,
 Sad and tipsy, we chant,
 Our trembling voices haunt the space
 While you observe us – as usual –
 With a merry smile on your face:
 “O my land, O my forefathers land
 I wish you well,
 Your love is in my heart
 Your name on my lips still
 Rest assured O my land
 I offer my life and blood at will
 Once you’re beckoning trumpet sounds”
 
 We briefly sink in the grip of grief,
 And a discomfited moment of hiatus
 Raising another toast and a sigh of relief
 
 How do you spend your evenings, dear friend?
 We are left like strangers here
 Our nights not the usual nights
 Our days but void without end
 
 Good morning Abdul, O noble comrade of ours
 Behold, the carnival of ascendance
 When times arrive
 Like burning meteoroids we come
 Bathed in fire, we dive
 One following the other
 Dead or slain,
 Each one dancing to his tempo
 The ballet of death, again
 
 So, wait for us my friend, wait for a while
 On the shore of reality
 And enfold us in your warm embrace
 Before you arrange for us a befitting place
 By the banks of the Nile
 Fill our empty cups with nectar of grace
 And our souls with your delightful smile
 
 O my comrade,
 Let our voices in merriment and glee explode
 While our melodious choir is in a singing mood
 Unique one amongst us, you are
 (The one who embodies the multitude)
 The giver of the dear and rare
 The first to offer when the need is there
 Let us chant our last requiem and elegy
 Then discard this ugly mourning attire
 
 Lead us in singing, Abdul my friend
 With a jovial ending to a sad prelude
 In the way singing should be
 With a merry note to conclude
 Lead us in singing
 My dear friend
 Lead us in singing.
 
 Rashid Sid Ahmed Elsheikh
 London: 10 September – 12 October 2010
 
 
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