Khaled Mattawa: Poet of Libya

The rebels are finishing their six-month ousting of Muammar Qaddafi by claiming Tripoli. In the West, we have grown jaded about Qaddafi, even though, he has, from time to time, served the interests of those who have economic interest in stability in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Our attention spans here are notoriously short, and Qaddafi has been around too long. Few of us could give a good reason to oust him or to support him. For a while now, Libya has seemed self-contained. Its troubles haven't seemed to affect us. We don't really know what the sides there mean right now.

But you know a man's bad when the poets all leave town, and Libya's poets have been out of the country for years now. Khaled Mattawa was one of many who have made their homes in other nations of the world since Qaddafi took control of his birthplace. We were lucky enough to have Mattawa's family come to the States. He now teaches in my next door state of Michigan. I  hope to get to hear him read in person some time, and I trust his poems in English because he writes in both Arabic and English.

Here, to remind us that Libya really does deserve a chance to be free, is some of Mattawa's work. Here's to people like Mattawa soon feeling they have a choice about returning home again. More of his poetry is available in his books or by clicking on any of the live links herein.

TWO-RIVER LEDGER

Joke used to be:

if you don't like it,

drink from the sea. Now

drink from the Nile.
Year 2030 all the fish will die
before reaching Dimietta.
Sometimes the world breaks
into shards aiming for your face.
Before they reach you
they turn into bubbles
and what joy to see them burst!

I'm talking about Lethe,
not the neighborhood in Benghazi,
five kilometers from the airport
where my father is building a house--
no architect, no map,
no contractor, no frills.
My mother says too big;
my brother, just
like the old house;
my sister, too far.
My father tells them:
Go drink from the sea.

Sadly, Fadil recites
"The waves beat ceaselessly
against my heart."
His neighbors console
"O Eye, be brave!"
Which do you think is resurrection,
the soul chiseling its way
back into the body,
or the body like a doughnut
rewrapping itself around a hole?
Is there such a thing as the art
of farewelling? Is there any other art?

Fadil now cries from a minaret,
"How I wish to drink
from the waters of Lethe,
how I wish to die
on a mountain of fruit."
His neighbors hand him
a spoonful of hashish.

Here's my father again,
drowning in his own water,
tubes out of arms and nose,
mouth open, lavender tongue.

What do you make of the dead,
their voices drifting to outer space,
and the radar we've built
to recapture them?

"Do not forget the blue shoes
I bought you when you were four.
Do not forget the nights
I carried you to the doctor,
frail, choking with coughs.
Do not forget to love your mother.
Do not forget the rosemary bush."