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AN ELEGY FOR SINDBAD CINEMA
A road
Lined by roofs washed white
        By memories
Under a perfect blue sky – where I am a captive
Where my words want to rise like the stairs of a fortress
Like voices practising a lost scale
        Note by note
In the book of my friend, the lute-player, who died
from silence, in lonely exile

I hit upon the sound, found the building
        Opened its door
Our time, memories have faded!
        The voices of whom have no voice anymore
Sound like tiny waterwheels in the dark!
They tell me
They knocked down Sindbad Cinema
How awful

Who will sail the seas from now on, who will see sea-calves ?
They knocked down our nights
Our white shirts, the Baghdad summers
Spartacus, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Samson and Delilah
How can we dream of travelling
        To an island
They knocked down Sindbad Cinema!

The drownee, his hair wet through,
        Returned to the party
After they had put out the lights,
Stacked the chairs on the empty bank
And chained the waves of the Tigris