Sudan, Muhammad A. Al Mahdi [read aloud books .TXT] 📗

SUDAN


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I.


O flower sunk into the river

Little smiling jinni

The pearls in your hair

Catch the sun

In their garden

A radiant garden of light

And floating laughter

And joy

Rises

From your colourful heart

And from underneath

Your bare feet

Earth's voice rings:

Bithibini?


The bracelets on your ankles

Dance their assent and chant:

My sweet dark hennah earth

I love you with my beauty

My hands, my feet, my skin

In a thousand languages of love

I celebrate your seasons

In the cycles of my wandering

My foot prints carve on your warm face

Life's beautifying scars

With torn tender hands I rear you who rears me

And harvest the fruit of your humid womb

That bears, beyond time

The secret of my descend


II

O sacred child of mountain and river

Where have you gone, how far?

What has happened to you?

My verse breaks

You are crying

Your grief alters my words

Love was a captive in merciless hands

And childhood a sacrifice to a stranger's crude eye

Earth bled under the piercing rough wind of our stark sigh

We fought for survival deep in the enemy's heart

Thirsty shadows from Allah's garden we all

Thrown against one another and yet

Still lovers, still nomads

Who follow destiny's star


III

Desert I was and sound

Ocean I was and night

Paradise was an evening drawn

On Solomon's hour's bleeding orange red skies

I danced to the ardha

And my heart burnt with desire

The sun was a girl I loved

And I pursued her tracks' light path

The spear my hand threw

Stroke a deep wound

Into the scarred flesh of my spirit's dawn

Its blood mingling with yours resurrects earth's dark beauty

Migrating rain birds you and I

On our inward-striving flight


[ Reviewed by Suzie Palmer 10/13/2005

'I love you with my beauty

My hands, my feet, my skin

In a thousand languages of love ...

Life's beautifying scars

With torn tender hands I rear you who rears me...'
Oh Muhammad, if only we all realized our connection to this Mother Earth ... then such grief and pain may cast asunder!
With love and deep respect Suzie xox :-)


Reviewed by _ Aberjhani 10/11/2005

And what a flight it is that carries the poet so deep inside and high above the tapestry of yearnings and myth and passionate divine faith that comprise SUDAN. Lines of light and fire upon lines of light and fire exploding skies of pure beauty.


Reviewed by s h 10/11/2005

So beautiful as usual!


Reviewed by Regis (Reg) Auffray 10/10/2005

The depth of your love is thoroughly evident in your verses Mahdi. Thank you for sharing your gift. Love and peace to you.

Regis


Reviewed by Sandie May Angel a.k.a. Sandie Angel 10/10/2005

This poem is filled with love and visions. Very well-done! Enjoyed the read!

Sandie May Angel a.k.a. Sandie Angel :o) ]


Sudan 2 (Variation)


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The goats on the roof top

Like messengers

Between

Earth and sky

Like angels

Climbing up

And down

Heaven's ladder

Like cries of joy

Like dancers

Of the rain

Ah!

Bring back one day

Of our happiest time!

O!

Revive the spirit of laughter

And song!

Then

I don't care

What happens

Ah!

Our boats flew

To where the rivers meet

There our hearts met

Too

And heaven's water

Was sweet

See

Our beautiful she-goat

She has borne

Three young ones

Milk stood in her eyes

And from your breasts

Like dew drops

Pearls white warmth

Like little tears

Of trance

I kissed your scars

And a thousand

Young

River birds

Carried your soul to me

Soul of soul

Eye of eye

Scar of scar

Path of path

Scorched memories

Are indelible traces

On indelible tracks

Across the land

Have you gone West or East

My eye

My soul bird

South or North?

Palm trees

Torn out

Lay prostrate to the wind

Huts

Burnt and left

In this cold

Cloudy

Night of

Harmattan

Turned graves of the sun

And ghostly spoils

Of man's sea

When man was man's curse

And an abundantly rich mother's children

Willfully broke

The chain of birth

And tore it

Like her womb

Into bits

So that one lover

To the other

Was a scorpion under a stone

And I, dear

Always seeking you

Am the swarthy buffalo

That drives

The water wheel

Round

Around

Crying

Round

And round

Around

Sighing

Ah!

Bring back our happiness!

Let not

Your soul

Succumb

O!

Scars

Are rivers

Our blood is

Red earth

Ploughed by guns

Knives

And whips

But its harvest

Is ours

And our veins are the channels

Through which life's wealth

Is carried

Across the seas

On laden ships

I asked: Where are you,

Africa?

And Asia replied:

Your heart's mirror is the Sudan

The ink is black

The scroll is white

Your blood is dark earth

Mixed with light

Heart and soul torn

In fratricide

Deepened your wound

And uprooted your spirit

And on its poisoned branches grew

The yoke of the enemy's might

Were you yourself

I would not be

A slave

Nor would you be an exile

And neither of us would be homeless

Like the betrayed promise of an oath

From the days of ancient sanctity

The lover's flame drills into me:

Ah!

Would heart and soul unite!


[ Reviewed by Regis (Reg) Auffray 11/15/2005

There is so much here, Mahdi. It is like a treasure trove where one can lose oneself in the brilliance. Thank you. Love and peace.

Regis


Reviewed by s h 11/1/2005

It's beautifully written. I am jealous, because I never write beautiful poetry like that anymore. I think you are a Poe or a Ginsberg.....Not like them, but that if you keep writing, I just think you would be remembered like them. ]


Sudan 3 (Africa)


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O dark pliant shadow

Ancient wise

Age-old child

Playing around the shal

In the evening

A tired godess

In the morning

A glistening sound

At noon

A forceful artisan

That draws on the earthen jug

Towering

From above the heads of the mountains' gazelles

The silhouette

Of their souls

A celestial bridge

Between man and Allah

WHO poured into the earthen jug

The waters of HIS garden

Shadow's ornaments

In your face

Paint the world

In lucid colours

That radiate in the rhythm

Your heart beats

River and mountain

In the palm of your hand

Speak

With the voice of a sparrow

To God

From mouth to mouth

Your body

Without burden

A sister

To the moon

Showed me the dawn

Of paradise

In wordless rapture

-Spring of time-

A sun of rain water

Washed me heart clean

And flawless

Like a lamb's first fleece

Like a water pearl in your jug

From the crystal falls of honey water

That spring

From underneath your tongue

And make your words

And Nile-born language

As pure as dew

From the dreams of a prophet

That feed the earth

With tenderness

And the child's red heart

With love

A bull's horn caresses

Sun's towring hair

Which in skillfully plaited

Nuba patterns descends

To kiss earth's mouth

In the ecstacy of young morning

And milk flows

From the eyes of the mountains

Ivory-white

The kuul, sky-walking

Eeha-Eeha!

Clad in a pale moon's ashes

The clashing sticks

Beat

The dream rhythm

Of a spirit's ta'aziya

From dusk to dawn

The chalk-white angel

Wrestles with man

And Buraq, the trance guide

Left her foot print

In the kujur's heart

That bears, like an inverted mirror,

The memory of unploughed time

When man was the branch of a tree

In Allah's garden

Then

Before it was named

When earth was sea

Was desert

Was sky

When the mountains were flames

From the tongue of an ancient kahin

Whose faith was an ocean

Unpolluted by shirk

And homeland to a thousand ships

And orbit of a thousand stars

I was but one of them

My earthen soul,

Dance

On the skin of your friend

The shade

As the daughters of Nuba

Sing and dance to the ondo

And the voice that returns

To the shal of which

It was born

Spoke to my sold and desecrated

My mighty, subjugated

Earth:

If there is one corner left

In your innermost

Vastness

Where falsehood

Doesn't

Prevail

Let me die there

A believer

Allah was

A wild flower

In a forgotten valley

Never far

By the banks of the river

In which sky and earth meet

There the kuul

Sky-faced

Wrestles with the angel

Earth-coloured

And I said:

Let me be

The sound

Of your

Ondo

Let me survive

The shadeless fire

That burnt my childhood's cradle

And return