Two Poems by Ahmad Al-Mulla: ‘This Scar’ and ‘Ancient Souls’
This Scar
By Ahmad Al-Mulla
Translated by Nour Jaljuli
He wakes up every day before every passing mirror,
to search for it on his cheek
swearing that it’s the mark he’s known by:
his tattoo, almost.
He tries to learn about what happened
to make it visible to everyone.
He forgot the defect, and the mark remained.
The scar is proof of him.
When it was etched beneath his eye,
bit by bit, his features weakened, until it overcame him,
and rubbed away his name.
The scar remained the only name by which he’s known.
Every time he tried to remember the reason behind it
he struggled.
He hid it by growing his beard long,
and turned his face to the right.
The scar haunted him in every image, every mirror.
in the eyes that stared at him,
turning back for another look.
He didn’t know himself without it.
He’d wake up and touch his face, and for a moment he
couldn’t find it.
He must be patient, must persevere.
The scar is a complete sentence, nagging at him,
not yet ripe.
He forgot where he read it,
in what book, on which wall.
The scar aches,
and sometimes he scratches it,
and usually he disappears behind it.
This scar:
he’s looking for it, smiling in anticipation, in fear,
every time he falls on his face.
Ancient Souls
By Ahmad Al-Mulla
Translated by Nour Jaljuli
I was born holding on to a scream
passed down by throats before me.
I lived my life
looking for its owner.
It’s a lookalike whose name I don’t know,
and no one can guide me to their home.
Everyone I’ve asked
pointed to an inheritance like mine
that they carry in their chest.
A will with mysterious letters
hides between the lines
of faded ink
in a cryptic handwriting I never could decipher.
This letter came, as though slipped under the door.
I shoved it in my pocket
and tried time
and again
to understand its meaning.
I noticed scars on my body
from sins I didn’t commit.
I failed to find a reason or remember a sin.
And I couldn’t find an explanation
for why my left foot constantly hurts,
or why strange faces appear in my dreams,
or why trees invade my memories—
trees my father didn’t plant.
Many times, I replaced my delusions with other urgent ones
and chose roads I didn’t want,
or pronounced sentences that gave the opposite meaning
like an apprehension telling me what it wants.
Who placed this on my tongue?
Who urged me?
I grew old in a body that was entrusted with something hidden.
How many times did I try to cut it off, or fool it,
and didn’t succeed?
Souls are ancient,
books written by ancestors and passed down,
flying and roaming with every fallen body along the way.
From up above, they inspire carefully chosen newborns.
They take them over and release them,
passengers endeavoring through life
not knowing what they carry.
Ahmad Al-Mulla is a Saudi poet and cinematographer who published his tenth book يا له من يوم هائل [What A Wonderful Day] in 2024, in collaboration with illustrator Reem Sameer Al-Bayyat.
Nour Jaljuli is a translator and poet traversing between the worlds of Arabic and English. She holds an MA in Literary Translation from the University of East Anglia and is the Arabic translator of Rana Dajani’s Five Scarves. Her translations have appeared in ArabLit, Middle East Eye, Jummar, and the 2022 UEA MALT Anthology for which she was also co-editor. You can find out more about her work on nourjaljuli.wordpress.com.