A Poetry Memorial for Daphne Caruana Galizia
Update - 16 October 2019
'It has been two years since Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered outside her home. Days ago, a court in Valleta, a city in which a public memorial to Daphne keeps being torn down by the Maltese authorities, sat through defamation case hearings that continue posthumously against Daphne. One of these cases was by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. I wish the Maltese authorities would display the same determination into pursuing the people who ordered the killing of a journalist. Daphne and her family deserve justice, not five years from now, not ten years from now. They deserve justice today.'
Margaret Atwood
Today marks two years since the brutal assassination of Malta’s best-known investigative journalist and anti-corruption campaigner, Daphne Caruana Galizia. Although three men have now been formally charged with her murder, a date for their trial has yet to be set while those who ordered her killing remain at large. A memorial for her in Valetta, has been repeatedly destroyed by the authorities. In response, PEN International has devised a poetry memorial as a tribute to her courage and her dedication to freedom of expression. You can read poems written to honour her legacy below.
Billiards in Malta: A mirroring memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia
1 Monday, October 16th, 2017, was a usual working day for Malta.
2 The weather was warm, 24ºC, the Sun unloaded its light shipload.
3 The northeaster played billiards chasing little clouds over the blue altar.
4 At 3 PM an invisible billiard cue stick flicked a car from the road.
5 After the blast Peugeot 108 simply vanished from the asphalt.
6 A car crash? A slip down? Broken brakes? Who knows? That's Malta.
7 People froze in shining shelters, seagulls panicked squeaking their alt.
8 Nobody knew what happened. Everybody knew. The world came to a halt.
9 In Malta billiard players always disappear into the blue.
10 A young man came running from the neighbouring house. That's Matthew.
11 Tin projectiles digged shallow, smouldering craters like in a sci-fi.
12 80 metres from the road Matthew found scattered remains of his mother
13 Daphne Caruana Galizia. She was a journalist. And that is why
12 80 meters from the road Matthew found scattered remains of his mother.
11 Tin projectiles digged shallow, smouldering craters like in a sci-fi.
10 Three young men will always search for their mother: Andrew, Paul & Matthew.
9 In Malta billiard players with their billi000ns always disappear into the blue.
8 Nobody ever knows. Everybody knows. The world comes to a halt.
7 People freeze in shining shelters, seagulls panick squeaking their alt.
6 A car crash? A slip down? Broken brakes? Who knows? That's Malta.
5 After the blast Peugeot 108 simply vanished from the asphalt.
4 At 3 PM an invisible billi000n cue stick flicked a car from the road.
3 The northeaster gained billi000ns chasing little zer000es over the blue altar.
2 The weather was warm, 24ºC, the Sun unloaded its light shipload.
1 Monday, October 16th, 2017, was a usual working day for Malta.
Boris A. Novak
A laurel wreath for a dead journalist
It was not love that planted the bomb,
it was not infatuation that led to my pursuit.
It was not love that forever changed me,
taking me away from them, my children.
It was a different kind of annihilation–
Daphne of legend, naiad, nymph of blessed
places, garnered for Apollo a laurel-wreath
when she fled his pursuit.
i.m Daphne Caruana Galizia, make me a place,
wreath me in laurels for the words I gave to you,
in rosemary for remembrance.
Make a grove of laurels for me, cooling trees.
Put them somewhere that is beyond his taking,
beyond his touch.
A shaded place for remembering, bring flowers there.
C. Murray
In Memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia
A perfectly ordinary working day: Daphne turns a key
and suddenly all her words become memorials.
It is a kind of black magic.
A government frightened of remembering
turns a blind eye, whereby
power turns into disgrace.
Malta: this sun-laden, holiday- enticing
island turns into a murderous place.
Dennis Haskell
Poem for a rose
You are a broken rose
which robbed of their thorns
on black earth
flowers in secret - invisible
for the ignorant
you grabbed the bull by the horns
he has lost his fur
for the price of your life
pulsing in a snake pit
your heart - still do
you live on
in the memories of the people
in her actions and dreams
you did not go, Galizia -
you are where we are looking for you
Gedicht für eine Rose
eine gebrochene Rose bist du
die ihrer Dornen beraubt
auf schwarzer Erde im
verborgnen blüht - unsichtbar
für die unwissenden
du hast den stier bei den hörnern gepackt
er hat sein fell verloren
um den preis deines lebens
in einer schlangengrube pulsiert
dein herz - immer noch
lebst du weiter
in den erinnerungen der menschen
in ihren handlungen und träumen
du bist nicht gegangen, Galizia -
du bist dort, wo wir dich suchen
Dirk-Uwe Becker
Laurel
Your work stands firm
against the wind
hereabouts
In far-off lands
paper is made from your bark
that your words be preserved
in sacred texts
Labhras
Seasann do shaothar go daingean
i gcoinne na gaoithe
i gcóngar
I gcéin
déantar páipear de do choirt
go gcaomhnaítear do bhriathra
i dtéacsanna diaga
Celia de Fréine
Das Schreiende Unrecht
Daphne Caruana Galizia war dem Unrecht auf der Spur,
hellhörig durch Fakten, so sehr man sich auch bemühte,
sie zu verschleiern und zu zerreden,
vor allem von Jenen, die für viele Andere zu sprechen hatten.
Als deren mißlungene Argumentation in Vertraulichkeiten
einmündete oder in massive Einschüchterungsversuche,
hinterhältig, feig und infam, haben unverändert korrupte
Herrschaftsverhältnisse das Recht ins Beziehungslose
hinausgestellt. Weil es unter solchen Bedingungen.
kein Sprechen mehr gibt, weil am Ende der Ausweg
in die Vernunft versperrt -, jedes Vertrauen zerstört ist.
Daphnes Sprache kam eine besondere Bedeutung zu,
weil sie sich jenen widmete die schweigen oder nicht mehr
reden können oder zum Schweigen verurteilt sind.
Daphne achtete auf Bruchstücke der Sprache,
auf den Zynismus des Unwiderruflichen, darauf, dass man
sowohl durch Sprache als auch von der Faktizität der Tatsachen
erstickt werden kann in einer verpfuschten Gesellschaft,
darauf dass aus dem Sprechen nichts anderes geworden ist
als das Grinsen darüber, dass dem Sprechenden nicht
das Schicksal des zum Schweigen gebrachten widerfährt.
Wolfgang Mayer König
Malta - Assassination Day
Under a moon full-grown and white
like a wild potato gone mad,
a man sits, half in darkness,
alone and smoking on his veranda,
floor strewn with advertising,
newspapers and brochures about temples
and cities and five-star hotels.
But grim is the news driven
by the machinery of death, the island
lays bare its whitewashed tombs.
A single bomb blew a car almost
over the mountains and left the tongue
that made life hell for Malta’s mafia
dead and charred. Like crows
the potato sacks took wing over hills
closely planted with seed potatoes from
Het Bildt. Ai, watch your back, Jack,
now night has fallen in Europe.
In the valley of death they torched the word
the way they once slid books into the flames.
Eeltsje Hettinga
Translation: David Colmer
Bonehouse
You may have taken my body,
scattered me with your bomb
for my son to find, part by part,
but my body was only a bonehouse.
I was more than skin and sinew,
more than blood and cells,
more than brain and heart.
I was questions and I was answers,
I was truth and I was freedom.
Listen well,
all you corrupt men:
I was love.
Listen again:
I still am.
Nuala O’Connor
How to Destroy a Memorial
The yellow throated crocus
will still speak out.
Wax will keep
its vigil in the hive.
Into the ear of each wave
the sea daffodil whispers your name.
The torn messages
begin to hum -
the Gregal carries news
on the wires of its breath.
The leaking ink
stains each grain of sand
which strafe the face
of Valetta
stick as grit
in its eye, keep its throat raw.
Nell Regan
Voices under the Sun
On the remote island of Malta
Mediterranean is in its bloom, boiling inside
Here it was, according to some - a lost city of Atlantis
The lighthouse is torn and the horizon melts indivisible
There is a vigil across from the courthouse in Valletta
We will not yield until truth is told, voices are saying
Here now the earth is rotten and numb
Covering the roots of sinister crime.
Tomica Bajsić
Archeology
Under the sustained sadness
Under the liquid glance of your four family men,
Father and sons speaking to the cameras,
Under the flowers, destroyed but replaced,
On the field where your word
Was set on fire, put to ashes,
An outraged archeology is resting, maybe waiting,
Disquiet,
While moist webs are becoming solid
And echoes of anger
Keep becoming stone, or just paper,
Which never forgets,
Just like sheer anger
Should never become mere sorrow.
Teresa Salema (Portuguese PEN)
A la mémoire de Daphne Caruana Galizia
Pourquoi est-ce qu’on te tue
parcequ’on t’a bien vu
parcequ’on déteste
l’humanité et le reste!
Daphne, ta vie était un grand sacrifice
pour la découverte des crimes et des vices
pour trouver la vérité et garder la justice!
Mais il faut lutter pour la liberté
néanmoins il faut croire en fraternité!
Vera Botterbusch
Daphne
If I was a poet, Daphne, I’d write a line to guide
you home, rewind that yarn – Ariadne’s trick.
Island-born like you, sick of cruelty and greed
seeding blood-soaked stone, blackened bone.
I’d build walls of words to shelter you. I’d feed you
figs, salted olives too; restore you to your desk
that day – Crooks, everywhere you look. You’d
Save, you’d stay. Your lines, straight and true,
cut right through lies, the ties that bind so many
tongues, roll back the blinds from careless minds.
We hear you, here. Let this space, these
awkward lines of mine, remember you.
LM
Daphne - In Memoriam
A first morning in Malta,
Guided like a tourist past trinket shops
Towards lunch, it was hardly a surprise
To find that on a small island
Everybody knew my business,
Theirs, each other's.
Truth is always elusive and recollection tricksy.
Memory has to be massaged from the haze,
Rescued from the fickleness of history,
The arrogance of men.
When you shake hands, settle down
For the opening of wine,
How different it would have felt
To have known you were meeting a martyr
Soon to pay for questioning crime.
Simon Mundy
Malta: How free I was there
As in a circle, the Bus Stops taken
Hop-on, Hop-off – without guidance
On all sides Water, fishing boats, colors
Drinkable the ocean
The Grand Harbour market
For smugglers of goods and thoughts
I try my hand as a silver-plater of words
With my bookish past
Churches and palaces
Yachts and limousines
A world straight out of a film
For the package tourist, who
Leaves it on the surface
Ralph Grüneberger
Translation: Ron Horwege
صرخة
أحمد العجمي
في هذا الليلِ الباردِ
دعني أصرُخُ،
إن كانت صرخاتي ستوقظُ
مِصباحَ العدالة.
لا أمتلكُ قوةً عضليةً،
ولا رصاصاً ولا مخالبَ،
لكنّ صرختي تُدهشُ الريحَ،
والذينَ ليس لهم غيوم.
أحلامٌ كثيرةٌ ابتلعَها الجمودُ
و لم يصرخْ أحدٌ فيها،
ولا مِنْ أجلِها،
وصار المطرُ يبتعدُ عن الثياب.
على الصرخةِ أن ترحلَ
من كتابٍ إلى نهرٍ
لتتجاوزَ العالمَ الخالي
من الأنوارِ،
ثمّ ترّتدُ إلى صدري، لتنمو.
كُلُّ الظروفِ مهيأةٌ؛
زاويةُ الميلان، ارتفاعُ الفقر،
ضخامةُ الفسادِ،
الضوءُ والموسيقى،
فلتصرخْ، داخلي، جميعُ الحجارةِ
والطيور.
Ahmed Alajmi