The Holy Throne

You sceptics! You criticise me
for not writing poems that are
crazy,
ridiculous, farcical,
trivial and foolish.
Don't you know that
these are the afflictions
of those
unfortunate minstrels,
who are not well-versed in the
Koran
and don't know anything about fine writing?


Why aren't you
refined,
cultivated
and wise?
Why can't you be noble
beings
to whom I could teach
beautiful things
in those beautiful words
which are the privilege of natures
highly developed in gentility,
skill and subtlety?


Don't you know that I
climbed that fabulous
mountain
of diamonds,
from which there's no way back
to the valley below?


Haven't you heard
that I reached that oasis
fresh as dittany,
where you can savour in complete
peace
the beauty of roses and myrtles,
the flavour of cherries and
apricots,
and the magnificent animals
that run there,
or the song of birds of paradise?


There, my soul swoons
at the rhythmic hips
of my beloved little slave girl,
this miracle among all the other Muslim
miracles,
this wonder among Hindu wonders,
this Arabian filly like a pearl
of the Bedouin fantasia,
this sovereign among queens,
this garden of all the moons
of Allah!


No doubt you've never seen
her face like
the new moon in May
at its first rising,
and white as the muslin
turbans of the
faithful!


But if you saw her rear,
you'd understand me!
For it's plump
as a milk-fed suckling pig
roasting in divine fires,
hot as the heart of an
impassioned philosopher,
and white as the throat
of a mountain partridge!


And it shines like the globe of a
minaret in the sun,
like the dome of the great
mosque of Damascus
and like the cupola of Saint
Sophia!


It's the throne of a female saint,
and it's the elixir of youth
drunk down by the spring
of immortality!


All you Christian critics
of Mohammed,
and you hardened agnostics,
will have to put up with the way I talk like a drunkard
about a subject so sublime!


Be clear though,
that the words of the Muslim
sages
may seem to lend themselves to disputation,
but are as incontestable and pure
as a well-proportioned, gleaming,
thoroughbred mare!

FROM THE COLLECTION OF POEMS "ISLAM"

PUBLISHED BY
EDITIONS ENCRES VIVES- COLOMIERS-FRANCE
NOVEMBER 2004