"A Noun Sentence"

To continue with the past two days' discussions of parts of speech, I introduce Mahmoud Darwish's, "A Noun Sentence".

A Noun Sentence

by Mahmoud Darwish

A noun sentence, no verb

to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed

after making love...a salty perfume

or a sour one.  A noun sentence: my wounded joy

like the sunset at your strange windows.

My flower green like the phoenix.  My heart exceeding

my need, hesitant between two doors:

entry a joke, and exit 

a labyrinth.  Where is my shadow -- my guide amid

the crowdedness on the road to judgment day?  And I

as an ancient stone of two dark colors in the city wall,

chestnut and black, a protruding insensitivity

toward my visitors and the interpretation of shadows.  Wishing 

for the present tense a foothold for walking behind me

or ahead of me, barefoot.  Where 

is my second road to the staircase of expanse?  Where

is futility?  Where is the road to the road?

And where are we, the marching on the footpath of the present

tense, where are we?  Our talk a predicate 

and a subject before the sea, and the elusive foam 

of speech the dots on the letters,

wishing for the present tense a foothold

on the pavement ...

From Mahmoud Darwish's The Butterfly's Burden translated by Fady Joudah (Copper Canyon Press: Washington, 2007), p. 255.  

I want to point out two distinct features of this poem.  

First, I am amused and comforted in the premise of a "noun sentence".  I say comforted because in the subsequent example of "noun sentences", I lose myself in his descriptions: "to the sea the scent of the bed/after making love ... a salty perfume/or a sour one."(2-4) needs no verb or action because it is complete in and of itself.  To pair a verb with that vivid image would displace the image and extend it to unnecessary associations.  

Similarly, "my wounded joy/like the sunset at your strange windows" (4-5) is a simile without legs (a verb, action) to move it from the "strange windows".  The poem exists completely in itself, in the presence and present of each line read.

This brings me to my second observation: Darwish's insistence on the present tense.  "Present tense" is made reference to explicitly thrice in the poem and the only verbs that dictate action are in the present tense in the questions of the second half of the poem.  The present tense being verbs, "is" and "are", are peppered throughout the poem's five questions.  The strict use of only being verbs is important insofar as it demonstrates the most simplistic expression of being or existence.  Appropriately, these verbs of being exist contextually to pose the reader with a series of rather existential questions: "Where is my shadow -- my guide amid/the crowdedness on the road to judgment day?" (9-10) and "Where/is my second road to the staircase of expanse?  Where/is futility?  Where is the road to the road?/And where are we, the marching on the footpath of the present/tense, where are we?" (15-19).  

The emphasis on the present tense strengthens the success of the "noun sentence" or image being read completely in the moment without concern for the image's past or future.  These vivid images succeed without verbs to take them anywhere else.  Furthermore, verbs (in their function as the predicate of the sentence) are absent from all the declarative sentences, which suggests answers are written and found in nouns.