Is That Our Train
Muntather Alsawad
Soul’s stars
drawn in the dark
as an old moon lost in
an abandoned lighthouse...
I flip dead voices
like girls’ eyes in an orphan train.
For whom do you sing
while wars swallow the ears?
For whom do you joke–
cities sleeping without candles?
The road is a train full of ashes,
a giant invisible snake squeezes it.
Sailors gaze into the vacuous space
forgetting songs.
Don’t try to dream–
the guitar is deaf
and the chair is old and isolated.
Witches’ teeth were chopped down,
their spider dresses stolen.
No one listens.
Trust dwindles in shales of the sea.
Do we die like this–
when our train never comes?
drawn in the dark
as an old moon lost in
an abandoned lighthouse...
I flip dead voices
like girls’ eyes in an orphan train.
For whom do you sing
while wars swallow the ears?
For whom do you joke–
cities sleeping without candles?
The road is a train full of ashes,
a giant invisible snake squeezes it.
Sailors gaze into the vacuous space
forgetting songs.
Don’t try to dream–
the guitar is deaf
and the chair is old and isolated.
Witches’ teeth were chopped down,
their spider dresses stolen.
No one listens.
Trust dwindles in shales of the sea.
Do we die like this–
when our train never comes?
Muntather Alsawad was raised on a date farm in southern Iraq. He studied literary criticism at Basra University and published articles and poems in Arabic. Since arriving in the US, he has devoted himself to translating (in partnership with Jeffrey Clapp) Iraqi poetry into English, as well as writing poetry of his own. Their translations have appeared in Asymptote, Samovar, Last Stanza, AzonaL and others. He lives in Portland, Maine.
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