Khaled Mattawa will be reading at the University of Tennessee some time in the near future. As I get more information, I'll post it here. This is one of the many poems available at the Web del Sol feature on his work.
For anyone who's not familier, here's his bio from the University of Michigan:
Khaled Mattawa is the author of three books of poetry, Amorisco (Ausable Press, 2008), Zodiac of Echoes (Ausable Press, 2003) and Ismailia Eclipse (Sheep Meadow Press, 1996). He has translated seven books of contemporary Arabic poetry by Saadi Youssef, Fadhil Al-Azzawi, Hatif Janabi, Maram Al-Massri, Joumana Haddad, and Iman Mersal; and he has co-edited two anthologies of Arab American literature. Mattawa has been awarded the PEN award for literary translation, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Alfred Hodder fellowship from Princeton University, an NEA translation grant, and 3 Pushcart prizes. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Antioch Review, Best American Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. Mattawa was born in Libya and came to the United States in his teens.
Omar pointed to a pink man
riding a red lawn mower,
rose bushes, yellow tulips,
orchids framing slick sod.
Owners of villas in Jilyana,
my brother's friends
desperately needed
"the grass machines."
He planned to charge triple
his cost, build a house
by the sea. Eyes half-shut,
cigarette clouds above him,
he snored leaving unfinished
a recitation of truncated schemes.
In my room I gazed
at the pink man again,
marveled at pictures
of women in transparent bras.
How I loved their black nipples
and full gray breasts!
I fancied camping
with the blue-eyed one
in the $42 Coleman tent,
the two of us fishing
at a lake without mosquitoes,
sailing the boat on page 613.
After watching soaps
on our mahogony-cased
(27 inch) color TV,
we galloped lime green scooters
on "scabrous terrains,"
returned to our 4-bedroom home,
mud up to our knees,
to make love on the mattress
on page 1219.
One morning,
my brother and I, landed
in New Orleans, in the heat.
The city's stench nauseated us,
mosquitoes slipping through
our window screen.
At the Lake Shore Sears
he caressed lipstick
red fenders, sank finger
in the comfort of seats.
The smallest model
was striped with silver,
and he hugged it
like a long lost niece.
In a patois of his own,
he bargained, told
universal dirty jokes.
We rode two on a nearby lawn,
sunshine, cool morning breeze.
We parked them outside
Morrison's where our waitress
said she bought all
her clothes from Sears.
That night I undressed her
gently, stroked her breasts
with my cheeks.
She sighed, and I heaved,
the air in her room
scented with my dreams.
In the morning she said
I talked in my sleep,
raved at someone,
kept asking
"What kind of flower
you want planted
next to your grave?"
Khaled Mattawa
from Web del Sol online
http://www.webdelsol.com/mattawa/
1 comment:
In many ways, it seems as if the Sears catalogue is probably some sort of symbol that many generations of Americans, and indeed, citizens from all over the world, can relate to. This poem speaks of that, and I'm glad to have been enlightened by it.
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