Girgis Shoukry

He was a builder.
He filled in every empty space with bricks
and decorated it with windows.

He put a staircase in every house
he built that led to the roof,
and from there to the sky.

Whenever he finished a building,
people came in and filled the space.
He often walked past his houses,
to hear the laughter and leave contented.

They call him a maker of houses,
but he calls himself
a maker of lives,
in rooms with staircases that led to
the sky.

One evening,
he climbed to the mountains and did not see any
more space.
His houses were whispering one to the other,
about an epidemic people had never heard of yet.
He returned home, sad and did not speak.

His wife said
he was delirious,
talked about buildings that grew quicker than their
inhabitants,
and ordered him to pray prostrated
at the feet of the doors and windows.

Sometime later,
The neighbors heard wailing.
and rushed in their sleeping gowns to where his
house was.
In the morning they erected a big tomb
and decorated it with windows.

1

I am a camera,
A storehouse for memories
I capture everything,
Aware of nothing.
I have retained all wars,
until my memory has become
a depot for
gunpowder.
Of late I started to forget
the images of those I love
in my coffee cup
and talk to myself
and tell others,
about ancients lands
that once filled this space
then passed away like music.

About people who carry
their animals and their homes,
every morning over their backs,
to entrust them to the sea,
then fall from their coats
leaving the air behind them
empty.

Every evening
I bite into a woman’s lips.
We remove our pants
carefully
and order our limbs to work
in silence,
that the picture may not be blurred.

Once more I tell myself
I am a camera,
All I capture is empty illusion,
so my films usually
burn, overexposed, to laughter.

I hold intimate relations with things
and believe that a man has to have things
to love, such as a homeland.
With which he engages in daily rituals,
then discards, to coach his soul in the meaning of loss.

On the other hand,
I know that things fall and do not die,
so I occasionally grow a beard and buy myself a dog,
and head towards certain streets,
where
at the top of emptiness
I find my coffee ready,
my mother’s home,
the joy of my colored crayons,
there, yawning in front of a book.
This is what usually happens
when I lose my things,
in mornings perhaps different
perhaps not from this,
and try to change the world.

I am a man who frequents the tavern in the
morning.
I sit under the soft lights
smoking and drinking
and ask the barman:
“Why do I have relations with things
That I lose? -you know- like a homeland?”

He smiles, and lights another candle,
and advises me to take care, as far as I possibly can
of the time factor.
Then he moves away from the scene
and crosses a century over the table,
while I sit happy, hating the sun.
I lift another glass
to another morning that deceives and that we lose
each morning.

Their hands whisper,
their legs in fervent embrace,
only their shoes beneath the table moan.

The man eats a piece of bread
and drinks up his glass;
the woman does the same.
Their eyes laugh in silence
And the table shakes.

The waiter is drunk,
and the owner of the restaurant gnashes his teeth.
The knives stand up on the tables
and smile to the customers.
Their hands are still whispering,
the legs still in warm embrace,
the eyes have gone to sleep,
and the table has died of shame.

The waiter now staggers
The wine bottle has fled in fear,
The owner’s molars have fallen off.

Who could hold back those legs and feet?

The knives alone understood the situation.

My house is large,
larger than my capacity for love.
For many days, to and fro,
I paced between the rooms
discussing the matter with the walls.

Each time I look at a wall,
the other walls are hurt.
Every time I slept in a room
I heard wailing in the other rooms.

When I decided to leave,
the house wept,
turned itself into an elegant coffin,
and ordered me to step in and lie in peace.