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By: Miran Abraham
In every city I visit,
I yearn for a black café,
where the walls are soaked with stories
and the air is filled with the smoke of a thousand thoughts.
I want to get lost in distant neighborhoods,
cross the streets where unfamiliar faces
tell the living history of the city.
In every city I visit,
I search for a dealer,
to wander together into the dark depths
of the unknown, where reality dissolves.
I crave a kind old whore,
resembling my mother, a familiar refuge
where I can share and alleviate my deepest fears.
In every city I visit,
I yearn for an absurdist soul,
crazy, unemployed, wandering through the streets,
kicking against empty cans, embracing madness.
I long for a child as a friend,
who laughs loudly at my words,
my movements, and is curious about my presence.
In every city I visit,
I hope to meet a writer,
to dive together into a corner of the black café,
letting our thoughts roam freely in the streams of words.
I want to visit old faithful books with my pen,
to toast for one night on the naked words
and wander through the stories that dwell in the pages.
In every city I visit,
I search for a pet store full of aquariums,
where the scent of the sea storms my thoughts
and forever lingers in my memories.
I yearn for my fellow countrymen,
to come together, delve into the past,
and embark on a journey to our homeland through our thoughts.
In every city I visit,
I compare the streets, trees, and shrubs,
searching for something reminiscent of the places from my childhood.
I scour for fortune seekers, ugly fools, vagrants,
and those born too late or in the wrong way.
In every city I visit,
I hope to find a pianist in the black café,
playing music late into the night
for the unfortunate in the city.
I seek out my father,
walk past his eyes, show that I have grown,
take his hand, and walk beside him in his shadow,
through unfamiliar streets, across the entire city,
stacking diplomas I give him as a gift,
I believe in everything, father, except what is yours,
I love strong drink and share the bed with every woman,
father, I curse, scream, and get lost, just like you.
he is in me, standing beside me,
always behind me,
never am I alone.
In every city I visit,
I hope to find an ugly, bald street,
full of holes, without lampposts, sidewalks, crosswalks, fences,
colored houses with large high windows without curtains,
a city with an ordinary school and a black café.
I want to fall in love with a homeless person,
to discover secret dark sleeping places in the city.
In every city I visit,
I am searching for the escaped characters
from my first story,
the wind that needed more space than I could give,
the woman in the blue dress,
with whom I wanted to travel
through the streets of distant lands that had never seen a woman in a blue dress walking down the street.
In every city I visit,
I delve into the silence of the black café,
until late into the night,
looking at myself in the eyes of others.
The poem “Black Café” is inspired by the poem “Another Cafe” by Ismail Hama Amin from 2012.