The tongues of fire*
Swollowed the leaves
The trees had uttered
To summon the rain.
(c) LazharBouazzi
Aug 25, 2017
Aug 25, 2017 at 2:27 PM UTC
The tongues of fire*
Swollowed the leaves
The trees had uttered
To summon the rain.
(c) LazharBouazzi
*the "tongues of fire" ("ألسنة اللّهب") is part of a work of bricolage I sometimes use in my English poems. It consists of subjecting a dead metaphor, a cliché, in Classical Arabic, to a literal English translation and presenting it in such a way that it looks as though it were a new metaphor I invented for the purpose. Another example of this work of bricolage would be the expression "the rain is falling like opened flasks" ("ينزل المطر كأفواه القرب") which is also my literal translation of a very old cliché in Classical Arabic whose equivalent in English would be "it's raining cats and dogs (I might have said this elsewhere).
