Sargon Boulus’s ‘Baudelaire’s Pain Arrived’

Baudelaire’s Pain Arrived

By Sargon Boulus

Translated by Miles Cayman

I’ve arrived at the edge.
I began as a herder, ravaging an archipelago stripped
of souls.
In the past that is impossible to catch
I go out and it takes off:
the gazelle licking salt at my doorstep.
What salt is left for me, oh Past?
I went mad in bankruptcy and love.
And one night my bankruptcy grew into a bird,
my love into an ember.
The bird took off, the ember stayed.
Into the ember I entered at last.
I got inside its innards and dug into their beauty.
I made certain she was removed as I entered, stumbling in the cloud of my rage.
Because my remoteness was very strong.
And I entered.
The ember in my hand
at the same time in my hand as I was in it.
A man carrying an ember in his hand containing a man carrying an ember
in his hand.
I won’t come out.
The man won’t come out.
What do I do to my life?
There’s a steamboat lost out to pasture in my guts.
One day I come across Baudelaire’s underwear on
my way.

How did it arrive in Beirut.
Baudelaire’s pain arrived by way of sea.
Grass won’t stop a hand floating a little.
A sick hand fleeing.
The ember in it.
They said as long as you’ve gone mad in bankruptcy and love,
you have gone mad in bankruptcy and love!
They said let go of the ember.
And my room crowded with the advice of tall figures.
And I left my room into the room of the ember.
I went inside again.
It was a long trip.
A long trip on which no one knew anyone.
No one drank except his from dearest friend’s innards.
No one exulted except in a woman.
We all slept in a single ember.
We shared the same night.
I slept long in the ships of weakness.
I said steer me into war so I may heal, as I saw my ember.
I said steer me into war so I may heal, as I saw my ember waiting.
The gazelle licking salt at my doorstep.
Oh Past oh Past
what did you do to yourself oh Past?
One night my bankruptcy grew into a bird,
my love into an ember.
The bird circled alone over the ember.
The bird watching the ember until the ember snuffed.
Oh Past oh Past what did you do to my life?

(Winter 1969)

Miles Cayman studies Arabic at the University of Chicago. You can read his poetry and translations in Subnivean, GASHER, and The Paris Review, among other publications.

Sargon Boulus (1944–2007) was an Iraqi poet and prolific translator of world poetry into Arabic. He wrote six original collections including Arrival In The City of Where (1985).

With gratitude to al-Kamel Verlag. Also read Sargon Boulus’s “A Story,” translated by Miles Cayman.