Poem for Lolita
- The poet expresses:
I have turned fifteen,
Now I am a thousand times prettier,
My love for you has grown
A thousand times…
Perhaps two years ago,
You didn’t notice my round face,
My beauty was mediocre…
And my dresses covered my knees.
I would come to you in my school dress,
With my crimson ribbon,
It was enough for me that you gifted me
A doll… a piece of candy…
I never asked for more.
But then everything evolved,
No longer content with just a piece of candy,
The game has become more serious,
A thousand times…
You have become the grand game for me,
The most enchanting game in my hands.
I have turned fifteen,
I have turned fifteen.
Everything within me blossomed and sang,
Everything has turned green…
My lips like a peach, shattered ruby,
Within my chest, a domed laugh of marble.
Springs, sun, and pine trees,
The mirror, when it touches my breast, becomes numb.
Everything that was straight two years ago has begun to revolve.
Imagine…
The child from yesterday who played at your door,
And would sleep in your lap when she was tired,
Has now turned into a precious gem…
A treasure beyond measure…
I have turned fifteen,
I became more beautiful…
You will invite me to dance… and I will accept.
I will wrap myself in a silk shawl,
And I will look like a princess in an Arabian hall…
After today, you will no longer feel ashamed,
For I have grown taller…
Oh, how I prayed to grow taller…
A finger… or two fingers taller…
Oh, how I struggled to appear older,
By a year or two…
Oh, how I despised my round face,
My pigtails… my school dress,
And the fatherly love…
Do not treat me in a fatherly way,
For I have now turned fifteen.
Poem: None But Love Prevails
- The poet asserts:
Despite the tempests that rage in my eyes,
And the sorrows that slumber in yours,
Despite an era,
That unleashes gunfire upon beauty, where it existed,
And justice, where it once flourished,
And opinions, where they were held,
I say: None but love prevails.
I declare: None but love prevails.
For the millionth time…
None but love prevails.
Only the trees of compassion shield us from barrenness,
Despite this ravaged time,
That slays the books…
And fires upon doves, roses,
And grasses…
And buries the grand poems
In the graveyard of dogs…
I declare: None but intellect prevails.
I proclaim: None but intellect prevails.
For the millionth time,
None but intellect prevails.
The beautiful word shall not die,
By any sword…
Nor any prison…
Or any age…
Despite those besieging your eyes,
And burning the greenery and trees,
I assert: None but roses prevail…
O my beloved,
Water, and flowers.
Despite all the barrenness in our souls
And the scarcity of clouds and rains,
And despite all the night within our eyes,
The day must triumph…
In a time where the heart transforms
Into a wooden vessel…
And poems become,
In a world without love, dreams, or seas…
My declaration: None but the breast prevails.
I announce: None but the breast prevails.
For the millionth time,
None but the breast prevails.
After the oil and diesel age,
Gold must prevail…
Despite a time steeped in perversion,
And hashish…
And addiction…
In an era that despises statues, paintings,
And perfumes…
In this fleeing time,
Towards devil worship…
Despite the ones who have stolen our lives,
And robbed our pockets of homelands…
Despite a thousand professional informants,
Designed by the architect with the walls,
Amid thousands of reports that
Rats write for each other…
I declare: None but the people prevail.
I assert: None but the people prevail,
For the millionth time.
None but the people prevail.
For they alone can determine fate,
And He is the All-Knowing, the One, the Omnipotent…
Amid a thousand reports that
Rats write for each other.
I assert: None but the people prevail.
I declare: None but the people prevail,
For the millionth time…
None but the people prevail.
For they who determine fate,
And He is the All-Knowing, the One, the Omnipotent…
Poem: The World Sets Its Clocks to Your Eyes
- The poet reflects:
Before you became my beloved,
There were more than one calendar to measure time.
The Indians had their calendar,
The Chinese their own,
The Persians had theirs,
And the Egyptians had theirs.
After you became my beloved,
People began to say:
The year a thousand before your eyes,
And the tenth century after your eyes.
I have reached a level of love that transcends,
Where the sea’s water is larger than the ocean,
And the tears of the eye are greater than the eye,
And the space of a wound
Is greater than the flesh’s expanse.
The deeper I unite with you,
My lips can no longer cover yours,
My arms can barely encircle your waist,
And the words I know
Are far fewer than the moles adorning your body.
I can no longer bear it,
For years now,
They have declared in the newspapers that I am missing,
And I remain lost…
Until further notice…
Language no longer has the capacity to convey you…
Words have become like wooden horses
And cannot reach you…
Every time they accuse me of loving you,
I feel superior.
I hold a press conference,
Distributing your pictures to the media,
And appear on television
With a flower of scandal pinned to my suit.
I listened to lovers
Discuss their longings
And laughed…
I drank my coffee alone…
I learned how a longing’s dagger pierces the side
And never exits…
My issue with criticism
Is that whenever I write a poem in black ink,
They say I have copied it from your eyes…
Whenever I deny my relationship with you,
You can hear the rustling of your bracelets
In the vibrations of my voice,
And see your nightgown…
Do not bring up my emotions for you again…
For the doctor advised me
Not to let my lips linger on yours
For more than five minutes,
And not to sit beneath the sun of your bosom
For more than a single minute.
If you know a man,
Who loves you more than I do,
Then guide me to him,
So I may congratulate him,
And then kill him afterward…
For more than a single minute,
So I do not burn…
If you know a man,
Who loves you more than I do,
Then guide me to him,
So I may congratulate him,
And then kill him afterward.
Poem: Love 1980
- The poet declares:
My blood turns violet…
The love cells invade the rest of the cells
And devour them…
The female word attacks the other words
And expels them…
They discover from my heart’s mapping,
That it is the heart of a bird…
Or that of a fish…
And that the warm waters of your eyes
Are my natural habitat
And the essential condition for my existence…
When libraries transform
And the post office becomes
A field of stars, and flowers… and cut letters,
I fall into a significant linguistic dilemma…
I tumble off the horse of words
Like a man who has never seen horses in his life…
And has never seen women…
I take a zero in literature,
I receive a zero in recitation,
I fail in the subject of romance,
For I couldn’t compose a beneficial sentence
About how wonderful you are,
And how negligent I am in memorizing your beautiful face,
And in reading the thousand and tenth part
Of your long hair…
I worked a whole year
On a poem you’d wear in 1980,
Except for gifts of the heart,
Except for the bracelets of my affection…
Twelve months… I worked
Like a silk worm, toiling away…
Once with a pink thread,
Another time with an orange one…
Sometimes with golden threads,
And sometimes with silver threads,
To surprise you with a song…
You drape over your shoulders like a Cashmere shawl,
On New Year’s Eve,
Igniting the imaginations of men, and the jealousy of women…
Twelve months… I labored as a jeweler from Asia,
In crafting a poem worthy of the might of your eyes,
And the ruby with the ruby…
And I created from it a long, long rope of words
To place around your neck, while I weep…
Twelve months…
As a weaver from Damascus, Florence, China, and Persia,
I wove a robe of love…
Unlike any in the history of robes,
Nor the history of men…
Twelve months…
In the Academy of Fine Arts,
I sketched horses with Chinese ink
Resembling the untamed flow of your hair,
And molded spiral shapes in ceramics
Reflecting the contours of your breasts…
On glass, I painted…
Creating sounds that have a fragrance…
And scents that have a sound…
And I painted a breeze around your waist with a green pen…
So no thought would come to him of turning into a butterfly and flying.
Twelve months…
I have been splitting the language in two…
And the moon into two moons…
A moon you receive now…
And a moon you will receive in the mail in 1980.
I create sounds that have a fragrance…
And scents that have a sound…
And I painted a breeze around your waist with a green pen…
So no thought would come to him of becoming a butterfly and flying.
Twelve months…
I have been dividing the language in two…
And the moon into two moons…
A moon you will receive now…
And a moon you will receive in the mail in 1980.