At Cafe Camus in Bonn
by Hussein Habasch
My friend, the poet Rolf Doppenberg and I entered Cafe Camus.
The cafe located in the heart of the old town of Bonn.
The cafe reminded me of the legend of "The Myth of Sisyphus"
I am Sisyphus, bearing the rock on my back, Albert!
I remembered "The Plague"
The plague of tyranny kills my people, Albert!
I remembered "Caligula"
Four bloody Caligulas' occupy my homeland, Albert!
I remembered "The Stranger"
I am the stranger everywhere, Albert!
Around the round table I was flying away in dreams
While my friend the poet was talking
about the conditions of writing, its affairs and sorrows.
A canvas bag hangs on the wall with "Shakespeare and
Company" written on it.
That bag took me by chance to Paris.
Years ago, a Colombian poet and I were hanging out in the Latin Quarter
and then we passed that old bookshop, the one looking and laughing
with the great Notre Dame cathedral
from which I bought Allen Ginsberg's"Howl"
and two black and white portraits, one of them was of Jack Kerouac
and the other of another mad poet named Arthur Rimbaud:
"The man with the wind at his heels".
I looked at the farthest corner of the ceiling
I saw Louis Armstrong having a great music festival
and playing himself on his divine trumpet,
which turns into butterfly wings and an angel's light in his hands
Then he sang three of his most beautiful songs:
"What a Wonderful World".
Then he followed it up with a song:
"It's been a long, long time" in which he says:
"Kiss me once
Then, kiss me twice
Then, kiss me once again
It's been a long, long time".
He sealed it with the song:
"A Kiss to build a Dream On".
Near the last table, the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday
was singing: "Lady Sings the Blues"
Then followed by her song bursting with anger and disobedience:
"Strange Fruit".
Suddenly I asked myself: Did the legendary singer die or was she killed?
Some sadness, a strange sadness
like a strange fruit that invaded and settled my being.
Next to the legendary singer
The brilliant saxophonist Charlie Parker"Yardbird"
was busy tuning the world on his instrument
to throw an extraordinary party in honor of this world
that is narrowing and fading every day!
Above, in a row beside Camus,
we find Kafka standing as a memorial
to the graves of all the vanquished in this world.
With his uncaring eyes remind you of a fate like the fate of "Gregor Samsa".
We all become Gregor Samsa at this masquerade party called the
world,
but we don't dare look at ourselves in the mirror until we see it.
As for how Toni Morrison arrivedfrom Ohio to settle
between Kafka and Beckett?
A quick answer comes from her: I came to tell you about "The
Bluest Eye"
and hug you with the "Song of Solomon".
Then sadly, she said to me: Oh Kurd, you are blacker African than all of
us.
I get what she meant.
I bowed to her and kissed her head with two tears.
In the far corner beside Tony,
Samuel Beckett frowned as if he had just come out of one of his absurd plays.
He was waiting in vain for the return of Godot who would never come!
What disappointment... What disappointment, comrade Samuel?
Above a small library the light was emanating with an astonishing
abundance!
I saw the poet's friend looking from the side of his eyes
during the talking to the direction of the light.
Marilyn Monroe was there lighting us up and lighting up our whole life!
Then she goes to her solitude, lights her cigarette
and writes in the darkness the fragments of her life.
From the window, Frida Kahlo was peeking at us.
Quickly, without pause, she was drawing everything.
She did not know that throughout her life
she only had painted the pains of her slender body,
the scars of her soul that could never be healed and her ordeal in
existence.
I asked her: Frida, why are you drawing so quickly, as if you were in a
hurry?
She said: 1-Morphine!
2-I feel like I'm
leaving early.
As for Salvador Dali, he was looked enviously at Frida from the
opposite window.
He paints the poets as wild horses,
the waitress as "Leda Atomica", the café guests as suns
shining from an egg,
the café owner with mustaches as his mustaches
and the café as a bus on the highway of imagination.
In the last, we folded our words, our papers and our books.
We got up, but I don't know whether we were wild horses or wild poets?
Then we went out.
At the door a ballerina bid farewell to us with a white dance as a swan.
We thanked her and each of us went to the state of his dreams
and dreams of his crazy poems.
---------------------------------
Biography
Hussein Habasch is a poet from Afrin, Kurdistan. He currently lives in Bonn, Germany. Born
in 1970 in Şiyê town. His poems have been translated into English, German,
Spanish, French, Persian, Uzbek, Albanian, Russian, Romanian, Italian, Serbian,
Macedonian, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovenian, Lithuanian, Vietnamese, Nepali, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada,
Tajik, Bengali, Turkish, Berber (Amazigh), Bosnian, Portuguese, Hungarian,
Chinese, Greek, Mandarin (the language of Taiwan) and Tzotzil (the language of
the Mayan peoples of Mexico), and has had his poetry
published in a large number of international poetry anthologies, more than 150
anthologies. His books include: Drowning in Roses, Fugitives across Evros
River, Higher than Desire and more Delicious than the Gazelle's Flank,
Delusions to Salim Barakat, A Flying Angel, No pasarán (in Spanish), Copaci Cu
Chef (in Romanian), Dos Árboles and Tiempos de Guerra (in
Spanish), Fever of Quince (in Kurdish), Peace for Afrin, peace for
Kurdistan (in English and Spanish), The Red Snow (in Chinese), Dead arguing in
the corridors (in Arabic) Drunken trees (in Kurdish), Boredom of a tired statue
(in Kurdish), Flor del Espinillo (in Spanish) A Rose for the Heart of Life,
selected Poems (in English) and Olvido (in Spanish), La harde de cerfsmeurt de
soif (in French). He participated in many international festivals of poetry
including: Colombia, Nicaragua, France, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Germany, Romania,
Lithuania, Morocco, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kosovo, Macedonia, Costa Rica,
Slovenia, China, Taiwan, Cuba, Sweden, New York City, Sarajevo, Greece, Albania, Cyprus, Uruguay and India. Recipient of the Great Kurdish Poet Hamid
Bedirkhan Award, awarded by the General Union of Kurdish Writers and
Journalists. As well as the International “Bosnian Stećak” award for Poetry,
awarded by the Bosnia and Herzegovina Writers Union. Katak International Literary
Award from Bangladesh given to him at the World Thinkers and Writers Forum for
Peace in Kolkata, India.
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