A poem by Tarik Hamdan

A poem by Tarik Hamdan
translated by Charles Bernstein

First glass:
Savory, aromatic, colored
A glass of dignity.

Second glass:
Last night
I read — the smallest brain on the planet
Was a dinosaur’s.

Third glass:
I keep dreaming of stability
And of life with a god damn big dog
Who shares my meals, games, bed …
Who laughs at humanity and who cries with me.

Fourth glass:
Blasted now with a ton of explosives
My head don’t feel the effect of the paracetamol.

Fifth glass:
How many shoes will you use to discover the desert? How many shoes for you to cry: I prefer to go barefoot!

Last glass:
By force, we come into the world
And by force quit it, not because we love this morass
But because living forces us
We are frogs infatuated with life
To Life!: I will never stop toasting and drinking

Tarik Hamdan, born in 1984, is a Palestinian poet living in Paris.

I translated this poem a year ago for a video from Trimukhi Platform.