NAKBA by Tale Næss

Read by Trond Peter Stamsø Munch during the festival "MOTforestillinger III - Ongoing Nakba?"

A group of men
lighting their cigarettes
securing the area

A circle of houses
rough mortar
emptied of mondanity

This is not a dream
This is not a place for tears and departures but a constant reoccurring event
A place for reality to show itself
violently pushed back:
a litter of white worms
a mouth, a face where history makes its inscriptions
prints its cold letters
its numbers
its rows of details and dates

This is the place were dreams are beheaded and worn as rags
and sold as souvenirs
in the market stands

Four :
This is the dark waters of the river mouth
a smell of burnt sugar
of poppies in flames

Here even the clouds are regrouping
tracking the hills of Ramallah
caravans of children and cattle
slow walking musicians with their tongues
hung in purses
around their necks

A place where reality flexes its muscles
and dancers start digging in the ground
for a safe passage
or a soft place to land

we will search with our hands in the sand
to find bodies
violently pushed back:
a litter of white necklaces
a mouth, a face where history has made its inscriptions
printed its tiny letters
its forgotten features
for us to gather
and then to turn
into rows of numbers
to details and dates