{"id":79969,"date":"2016-01-04T21:46:22","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T20:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/?p=79969"},"modified":"2018-10-06T00:36:02","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T22:36:02","slug":"ashraf-fayadh-frida-kahlos-moustache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/ashraf-fayadh-frida-kahlos-moustache","title":{"rendered":"ASHRAF FAYADH: FRIDA KAHLO’S MOUSTACHE"},"content":{"rendered":"

14.01.2016 \u2013 Worldwide Reading of selected poems and other texts in support of Ashraf Fayadh.<\/strong><\/span>
\n The international literature festival Berlin (ilb) calls on all individuals, institutions, schools and media outlets that care about justice and freedom to participate in a worldwide reading of selected poems and other texts in support of Ashraf Fayadh, on 14 January 2016.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, a 35 year-old Palestinian poet and art curator, who lives in Saudi Arabia, has been sentenced to death by a Saudi court on 17 November 2015 for the \u201ccrime\u201d of apostasy. He was denied access to a lawyer throughout his detention and trial.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"FAYADH12\"<\/p>\n

Frida Kahlo\u2019s Moustache<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I will ignore the smell of clay, the reproach of rain, and the choke <\/span>that has long settled in my chest<\/span>
\nand I will search for an appropriate condolence of my situation that doesn\u2019t permit me<\/span>
\nto explain your lips in the manner I\u2019d hoped for<\/span>
\nor to shake dew drops off your reddish petals<\/span>
\nor to lessen the intensity of the obsession that overwhelms me whenever I realize<\/span>
\nyou\u2019re not next to me now and won\u2019t be…I\u2019m forced to justify my position<\/span>
\nto the silence that night punishes me with<\/span>
\nPretend that the earth is silent, just as we see it from afar,<\/span>
\nand that all what happened between us was no more<\/span>
\nthan a poor prank that shouldn\u2019t have gone this far<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your idea about the days I usually spend without you?<\/span>
\nabout my words that used to rapidly evaporate<\/span>
\nabout my heavy pain<\/span>
\nand the knots that had sedimented inside my thorax like dried up algae<\/span>
\nI forgot to tell you…that in the practical sense of the word<\/span>
\nI\u2019ve grown used to your absence<\/span>
\nand that my wishes have lost their way to your desires<\/span>
\nand my memory has begun to corrode<\/span>
\nAnd that I still chase light, not because I want to see…the dark always frightens<\/span>
\neven when we\u2019re used to it<\/span><\/p>\n

Is my apology for everything that happened while I was trying <\/span>
\nto make up excuses for you enough?<\/span>
\nIs it enough for the times jealousy raged in some place inside me<\/span>
\nor when disappointment ruined yet another of my dark days<\/span>
\nAnd for my repetition that justice will always suffer the disturbances of menstruation<\/span>
\nand that love is a backward impotent man at the end of his days<\/span><\/p>\n

I will be forced to trick my memory<\/span>
\nand pretend that I have no problem sleeping<\/span>
\nand rip all the remaining questions<\/span>
\nthe questions that now search for persuasive answers<\/span>
\nafter all punctuation has been dropped<\/span>
\nfor purely personal reasons<\/span><\/p>\n

Let the mirror explain to you how beautiful you are<\/span>
\nRemove my pile of dust, my words<\/span>
\nBreathe deeply, remember how much I loved you and how<\/span>
\nthe whole thing turned into a brief electrocution<\/span>
\nthat almost caused a great fire in an empty warehouse<\/span><\/p>\n

The sun is extremely polite when it comes to covering her mouth while yawning<\/span>
\nThe sun doesn\u2019t know how to impose its total control over the earth<\/span>
\nthe same fate the sun has with darkness, the sun<\/span>
\nhas no choice but to resist the dark, even if Pluto<\/span>
\nhas lost its qualifications to remain among the vertiginous planets<\/span>
\nThe moon has a different take on imposing its will over the sea<\/span>
\nAnd the sea can swallow whatever creatures it desires and lay claim to more land<\/span>
\non account of global warming, the punctured ozone, a woman\u2019s right<\/span>
\nto wear a bikini, and the temptation of birds with the riches of fish<\/span><\/p>\n

I will no longer be pain pills for your monthly period<\/span>
\nand won\u2019t enjoy your exceptional conversation while you prepare for a long nap<\/span>
\nor when you want to offload your anger<\/span>
\nor while you spend some lovely time in a bar packed with lovers of Jazz<\/span>
\nI won\u2019t be able to sleep enough or explain Nietzsche\u2019s moustache<\/span>
\nor persuade you that Imad\u2019s work is a unique experiment in art<\/span>
\nI will busy myself with normalizing relations between earth and water<\/span>
\nin order to obstruct fire on its way to becoming an ambassador of good will<\/span>
\nOnly then will the air cease to appear presentable<\/span>
\nas it dries out your underwear on your laundry line<\/span><\/p>\n

I walk in the street of the inexpressible and question the indifferent rain drops<\/span>
\nI try to remove the rust that\u2019s stuck in my throat<\/span>
\nHow many times should I refer to the wind\u2019s guidebook to decipher your moods? <\/span>
\nHow many words have I silenced to spare you the smell of disappointment that my American cigarette blows?<\/span>
\nI won\u2019t be the piggybank you break whenever you run out of funds<\/span>
\nand I won\u2019t include as poetic chore an amorous description of your eyes<\/span>
\nbecause your eyes, in the final analysis, are more fatal than those<\/span>
\nthat ruined Jareer\u2019s mind, or more poetic than Sayyab\u2019s palm tree groves<\/span>
\nYour eyes are precisely the way angels prostrated to Adam,<\/span>
\nand I exclude Satan, naturally, for rhetorical reasons<\/span><\/p>\n

The world this morning resembles my stomach with its ulcers, resembles<\/span>
\nthe ache that spends its weekends in my head, resembles<\/span>
\nthe heaps of broken glass that fill my memory<\/span>
\nThe world is no longer alright since I\u2019ve stopped worrying about glass<\/span>
\nor the reply letter to my letter or Mrs. Clinton\u2019s failure to lead the Democratic Party<\/span>
\nDon\u2019t look for me, I will be there<\/span>
\nwith every sip of coffee<\/span>
\nand when you relax at a spa, or want to laugh or cry, or if you desire<\/span>
\nto toss yourself into someone\u2019s arms, or when you can\u2019t<\/span>
\nresist your insomnia or your mobile phone<\/span>
\nthat didn\u2019t ring during your sleep<\/span>
\nor when in the unconsciousness of writing, or when you want to talk<\/span><\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh: Frida Kahlo\u2019s Moustache<\/span><\/strong><\/em>
\nTranslated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

fleursdumal.nl magazine<\/span><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14.01.2016 \u2013 Worldwide Reading of selected poems and other texts in support of Ashraf Fayadh. The international literature festival Berlin (ilb) calls on all individuals, institutions, schools and media outlets that care about justice and freedom to participate in a worldwide reading of selected poems and other texts in support of Ashraf Fayadh, on 14 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352,655,1093,445],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive-e-f","category-art-literature-news","category-frida-kahlo","category-repression-of-writers-journalists-artists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79969"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79977,"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79969\/revisions\/79977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fleursdumal.nl\/mag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}