الاسكندريه

The City

you said,
"I'll go to a different country, another sea,
another and better city than this one.
Here everything I do goes wrong
and my heart is dead and buried as a corpse.
How long should my soul suffer here ?
Wherever I turn, anywhere I look
I see the burnt cinders of my life here
where I've spent too long doing nothing."

You'll find no new sea or land
This city will always dog you .
You'll roam the same streets
go grey in the same houses.
You'll always end up here
Forget anywhere else .
You have no ship, no road
The life you've wasted here
you've wasted everywhere.

reading Cavafy in Askendrya - Egypt
december 2009.

thank you Mohamed for the Arabic title.