Y E H U D A   A L H A R I Z I
_____________________________________________

(Tudela, Damascus , Iraq , c. 1165/70 – c. 1235)

 

Blessings' Curse

 

I.

Curses composes poems like shit,
      and thinks the shit in his mouth honey.
His judgment only highlights his shame:
      he's wholly exposed in his lines of poetry.
His father was always villainy's slave—
      his mother was bound to her disgrace;
both were then gathered and taken up,
      their infamy left for us to face:
for the father's filth in the son can be seen—
      as the stench makes it easy to find the latrine.

 

II.

Curses came and gave me his poems—
and the next day returned, and took them home.

Giving and taking, coming and going—
a dog returned to its vomit I thought him.

 

 

n e x t

 

back to POEMS ON POETRY contents page

[ page 4 of 19 ]