Afeif Ismail, Poetry Reading, 28th March 2010

Afeif & Vivienne Glance


Old Trick


I don’t know how many names I have had
But today I am an African Sinbad
Who came to Gondwanaland
To teach, how you’ll be able
To make an elephant disappear in front of a thousand people.
If want to enter a magic moment
-close your eyes, close your eyes
-Hold your hands near your heart,
-take a deep breath
-Turn in your mind a new page
-imagine there is an elephant on this stage
-Let your imagination
fly to a fantastic scene from heaven
-count 9,8,7
What a lucky number! 7!
It can make an elephant disappear
In front of two thousand eyes in just a minute like a dust of sand!
Make a fist with your right hand
Put your thumb like a trumpet
You’re the soloist in a large band
The elephant you imagined is right now under your nose stand
Blow three times 1,2,3!!
Be proud be glad
The elephant begins to fly!
Quickly! Open your eyes before it disappears like a dust of sand
Watch it! Oooppsss!!
The elephant has gone!!

Don’t feel sad! Really you’ve done well, not bad
Actually this lesson is not about an African Sinbad
In Gondwanaland
Or about traditional magicians
It’s about the difference between two Politicians
The first liar makes us totally disagree with him
And the other we totally believe in him
When his hat runs out of rabbits
He blows our dreams away
like my imagined elephant
From now on open your eyes
And realise there is no trick or surprise
Except the one the huge crowd supplies.
Refugees



Transcreated by Vivienne Glance and Afeif Ismail


Forced to flee from their heartland
not fearing death
but
demanding life.
Year
after
year
their alien souls shrivel
they are returning
not for the weight of nostalgia
but
to be buried in their homeland.







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