Raise Your Voice

Artwork - Portrait by Ehab Aziz
Raise Your Voice by Mohamed Mounir

Raise your voice in song
We can still sing
And song is still so much part of our lives
Raise your voice in song, song is still possible

And if one day you feel you'll break

You must stand tall

Standing just as a palm tree stretching towards the sky

Don't be defeated, don't break down

Don't be afraid

Be a dream blossoming in the desert

Your song among the chorus shakes my joyous heart

Healing all my wounds

When you dance, I dance, I'm compelled to dance

Our dreams become intertwined

When you dance, I dance, I'm compelled to dance

Don't be defeated, don't break down

Don't be afraid

Be a dream blossoming in the desert

Raise your voice in song

We can still sing

محمد منير - علي صوتك

على صوتك بالغنى لسه الاغانى ممكنة, ممكنة

ولسه يامه ياما ياماه فى عمرنا

على صوتك بالغنى لسه الاغانى ممكنة, ممكنة

ولو فى يوم راح تنكسر لازم تقوم

واقف كما النخل باصص للسما للسما

ولا انهزام ولا انكسار ولا انهزام ولا انكسار

ولا خوف ولا ولا حلم نابت فى الخلا

على صوتك بالغنى لسه الاغانى ممكنة, ممكنة

غنوتك وسط الجموع تهز قلبى اللى انفرح

تداوى جرحى اللى انجرح

غنوتك وسط الجموع تهز قلبى اللى انفرح

تداوى جرحى اللى انجرح

ترقص ارقص غصب عنى ارقص

غصب عنى غصب عنى ارقص

ينشبك حلمك فى حلمى

ترقص ارقص غصب عنى غصب عنى ارقص

ولا انهزام ولا انكسار ولا انهزام ولا انكسار

ولاخوف ولا ولا حلم نابت فى الخلا

Egypt: Who says NO

Artwork by Ehab Aziz
Words by Amal Donkol

I said:
Let love be on earth, and it was not

I said:
Let river dissolve into ocean
Ocean into drought
Drought into fertility
Sprouting bread to sustain hungry hearts
Grass for the earth’s cattle
Shade for exiles in sorrow’s desert
I saw the son of Adam
Raising his fences around God’s personal farm
Shopping for border guards
Selling bread and water to his brethren
Milking lean cows

I said:
Let love be on earth, and it was not
Love was now possessed
By those who could afford the price
And God saw this was not good

I said:
Let justice be on earth
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth

I said:
Does the wolf devour the wolf?
The goat devour the goat?
Don’t brandish the sword against the necks of these two:
The child or the old man
And I came to see the son of Adam
Slaughtering the son of Adam
Setting cities ablaze
Planting his dagger in the bellies of pregnant women
Giving his children’s fmgers as fodder to horses
Decorating victory banquet with rosettes of severed lips
Justice become death
The gun its measure
Its children crucified in public squares and city street corners

I said:
Let justice be on earth
But it was not
Justice was now possessed
By figures seated on thrones of skulls
With shrouds for mantles
And God saw this was not good

I said:
Let reason be on earth
With its measured voice

I said:
Do birds build nests in a snake’s mouth?
Do worms live in fiery flames?
Does the owl paint its eye-lashes black with Kohl?
Is salt strewn when wheat is intended
In the run of time’s wheel?
I saw the son of Adam go mad:
Uprooting tall trees
Spitting in wells
Spilling oil on the face river’s face
Living in a house while storing a deadly bomb
Under the sill
Giving shelter to scorpions in the warmth of his ribs
Bequeathing to his descendants
His faith
His name
His shirt of strife
Reason become an exiled beggar
Stoned by brats
Arrested by border guards
His patriotic identity invalidated by governments
His name listed among those who hate their homeland

I said:
Let reason be on earth
But it was not
Reason fell apart in a spiral of exile and prison
Until it went mad
And God saw this was not good

The Egyptian Revolutions

September Tunes
by Salah Jaheen (December 25, 1930 – April 21, 1986) has had a singular effect on development of colloquial Arabic poetry in Egypt.

Art work by Ehab Aziz

The film stopped, frozen

Now we can ponder the image

No detail missing.

Everything speaks, articulate

wordless, voiceless.

The instant death pushed down –

gentle yet omnipotent, one desultory day –

On a button in this kingdom

The film stopped, frozen.

Let the projectionist rewind the scene

I want to see myself in the old days — young

among the ranks of the revolution — proud,

Impressed by neither king nor father

I want to see again and remember

Why one of my blows hit,

one of them missed

And one stopped the film, froze it.

The projectionist said: No return

Live as long as you have breath enough to live

And look and see.

Where the young sit — row after row –

Where the young sit in the cinema whistling

No stopping.

Where the young sit there are a thousand million

Impressed by neither king nor father.

Look at them

And you will remember

The last words of Spartacus – by Amal Donkol

Artwork (2009 - 2012) by Ehab Aziz 


Amal Donkol (1940-1983)
One of Egypt’s great poets was a rebel and was taken as a political prisoner many times in the 60s for his views, and was let out by Sadat in the mid 70s. He died of cancer at the age of 43. The translation is not as professional as it should, but it reflects the true meanings of the Arabic original.

The last words of Spartacus

Glory to Lucifer … worshiped by the wind
Who said No to the face of those who said Yes
Who taught Man to tear down the evanescence
Who said No … so he did not die

And remained a soul eternally in pain
I am hanging from the morning gallows
My forehead is bowing to death
Because it did not bow while I was living

O’ brothers and sisters passing through the main square with your heads bent low
Gliding towards the end of evening hours, down ‘Alexander the Great avenue’
Do not be ashamed
Do not be ashamed and raise your eyes toward me
Because you are hanging there beside me
Hanging next to me on Caesar’s gallows

Raise your eyes to me
For maybe if you do, and your eyes meet the death in my eyes
The extinction within me might smile
Because you raised your heads up if only once

Sisyphus
The rock is no longer on his shoulders
It is now carried by those who are born in the dorms of the slaves
While the sea
The sea is like the desert, does not quench the thirst

For only tears quench the thirst of those who dare to say No
So raise your eyes up to the hanging rebel
For you will end up like him tomorrow
And kiss your wives
Kiss your wives right here in the middle of the road
For tomorrow it is in this very place that you will perish

Bowing is bitter
And the spider on the necks of men is knitting their fall
So kiss your wives
For I have not kissed mine goodbye
And if you see my child whom I left behind in her arms
Missing an arm
Teach him to bow

God did not forgive Lucifer when he said No
And the gentle hearted and the kind are the ones destined to inherit the earth at the end
Because they do not get hanged
So teach him to bow
There is no escape
And do not dream of a world full of happiness

For after every Caesar that dies
Is born another Caesar
And behind every rebel that dies
Is pointless sadness and wasted tears.
--------
I love you EGYPT

WIE EIN SCHAUSPIELER

GEDENKE, du bist hienieden wie ein Schauspieler, der die Rolle spielen muss, die der Dichter ihm bestimmt hat, sei sie nun kurz oder lang.

Wenn er dir die Rolle eines Bettlers zugeteilt hat, so versuche diese Gestalt gut zu verkörpern.

Ebenso ist es mit der Rolle eines Krüppels, eines Königs oder eines einfachen Bürgers.

DENN ES IST DEINE AUFGABE, die dir zugeteilte Rolle gut zu spielen; eines anderen Aufgabe aber ist es, sie auszuwählen.

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