Perhaps you work in the quarry … as charger … or scanner
Speech in the unemployment market
Samih Al-Qassim *
Perhaps miss – if you wish – my livelihood
Maybe sell my clothes and my mattress
Perhaps you work in the quarry … as charger … or scanner
Maybe look grains in manure
Maybe get naked and hungry
But not sell me
O sun enemy
And to the last beat of my veins
Maybe I despojes the last inch of my land
Perhaps imprison my youth
Maybe I steal the inheritance of my ancestors
Furniture … utensils and pots
Maybe get burned my poems and my books
Maybe t shoot my body to the dogs
Perhaps uprisings terrors of terror on our village
But not sell me
O sun enemy
And to the last beat of my veins
I will resist
Perhaps quench all the lights in my night
Perhaps deprive me of the tenderness of my mother
Maybe my story falsifiques
Perhaps thou shouldest masks to fool my friends
Perhaps uprisings walls and walls around me
Maybe I crucifiques one day before unworthy shows
But not sell me
O sun enemy
And to the last beat of my veins
I will resist
O sun enemy
The port overflows with beauty … and signs
Boats and joys
Cries and demonstrations
The patriotic songs burst throats
And on the horizon … there are candles
Defying the wind … the storm and frank obstacles
It is the return of Ulysses
Sea of deprivation
The return of the sun … my exiled people
And for your eyes
O sun enemy
I swear I will not sell out
And to the last beat of my veins
I will resist
I will resist
I will resist
* Samih Al-Qassim was born in Zarqa, within a Druze family. Formed teacher, after the publication of his first poems was banned by the Israelis to exercise the profession.