Poem: A Pain that Stabs Me
Nizar Qabbani writes:
A pain that stabs me,
It is an illusion that kills me and the oppression of a beloved who tortures me.
Oh! What is this life that is filled with endless pains and wounds that never heal?
And tears flowing from my eyes,
It has scratched my cheek, kept me awake at night, and robbed my sleep.
Oh, my heart! How patient you are with your love, even amidst their many injustices.
Despite the deep wound that never heals nor fades, you still love them.
No matter the evils, your heart continues to adore.
In the face of oppression and sin, you still yearn for them.
Despite their arrogance, oh my heart, how long must this last? How long??
Tell me, for the love of God, how long will this patience endure? This steadfastness, this suffering, and this contemplation?
How long will this anguish and humility persist? Stop this! Abandon what you once cherished as they did.
And suffer as you caused them to suffer, and darken your heart as it was darkened.
You have endured much, my heart, and have been patient far too long for someone who knows nothing of love’s meaning.
Isn’t it time for you to put an end to all this?
For the love of God, my heart,
Stop!
Poem: Your Love Taught Me
Nizar Qabbani writes:
Your love taught me to mourn even as I crave,
For a woman who makes me sorrowful, for a woman over whom I cry like a little bird.
For a woman who gathers my fragments like shards of broken glass.
Your love, my lady, taught me the worst habits.
It taught me to read my coffee cup a thousand times in one night,
And to try the remedies of perfumers and knock on the doors of seers.
It taught me to leave my home and roam the streets,
Chasing your visage in rain and the lights of cars,
Chasing your clothes among those of the unknown.
I follow your shadow, even on the pages of advertisements,
Searching for a gypsy hair that makes all gypsies envious.
Searching for a face, for a voice, that is all faces and all voices.
Your love led me into the cities of sorrow,
And I had never ventured into sorrow’s realms before you.
I never knew that tears embody humanity, and that without sorrow, man is merely a memory.
Your love taught me to behave like a child, like to draw your face in chalk on the walls,
And on the sails of fishermen, on bells, and on crosses.
Your love revealed how love alters the cartography of time.
It taught me that when I love, the earth ceases to spin.
Your love enlightened me about things I never fathomed.
So, I read children’s stories, entered the palaces of fairy tale kings,
And dreamed of marrying the daughter of the sultan,
With eyes clearer than the waters of the bays.
I dreamed I could steal her as knights do and gifted her necklaces of pearls and corals.
Your love taught me, my lady, the essence of delirium.
It demonstrated how time passes while the sultan’s daughter doesn’t arrive.
Your love showed me how to adore you in everything, in bare trees, in dry yellow leaves,
In rainy weather, in storms, in the tiniest café where we drink our black coffee in the evening.
Your love led me to seek refuge in hotels which have no names and cafes without identities.
Your love taught me how the night magnifies the sorrows of strangers.
It taught me how to see Beirut as a woman who adorns herself every evening.
Your love showed me how sorrow sleeps like a boy with two broken legs in the alleys of Rocha and Hamra.
Your love taught me to mourn while I crave for a woman,
To weep upon her shoulders like a bird,
To find solace in her embrace, gathering my shattered pieces like broken glass.
Poem: She Said to Him
Nizar Qabbani writes:
She said to him,
“Do you love me while I am blind?
In this world, there are many daughters,
Beautiful, lovely, and captivating.
You must be a madman or just pitying a blind woman.”
He replied, “I am indeed in love, my dear,
And wish for nothing from my world but for you to be my wife.
God has granted me wealth,
And I believe healing is not impossible.”
She stated, “If you return to me my sight,
I will accept you as my fate, and spend my life with you.
But…
Who will give me their eyes,
And what night will remain for him?”
One day, he arrived hastily,
“Rejoice, I have found a donor!
You will see what God has created and innovated
And you shall fulfill your promise to me
To become my wife.”
When she opened her eyes,
He was standing there holding her hands,
But her scream shattered the silence, “Are you also blind?”
She wept for her ill fate.
He consoled her, “Do not grieve, my beloved,
You will be my eyes and my guide.
When will you become my wife?”
She responded,
“Can I marry a blind man,
Now that I am able to see?”
He wept and said, “Forgive me,
Who am I to seek your hand?
But before you leave me,
I want you to promise me
That you will take great care of my eyes.”
Poem: Contradictions
Nizar Qabbani writes:
Between every love and love, I love you.
Between one who bid me farewell and another who will come,
I search for you here and there as if time belongs only to you.
As if all promises converge in your eyes.
How do I explain this feeling that overwhelms me from morning till night,
And how do you cross my mind like a dove when I’m in the presence of the most beautiful women?
Between two promises, two women, and a train arriving while another departs,
There are five minutes where I invite you for a cup of tea before traveling.
In those five minutes, I reassure myself about you and share my worries.
In them, I curse time a little.
In those five minutes, you change my life a little.
So, what do you call this confusion, this fragmentation, this long, enduring agony?
And how is treachery a solution? And how is hypocrisy beautiful?
And between love’s discourse in all languages, there is a language spoken for you.
And poetry that will tie scholars to your era.
Between the time of wine and the time of writing,
There is a moment when the sea is filled with ears of grain.
And between a drop of ink and another drop, there’s time when we sleep together, between the intervals.
And between autumn and winter, there exists a season I call the season of tears,
During which the soul is closer than ever to the sky.
In the moments where all women resemble each other,
Just as all letters on a typewriter do.
Poem: I Extend My Apologies
Nizar Qabbani writes:
I extend my apologies to your sorrowful face, like the sun at the end of the day,
For the writings I have penned, for the follies I have committed,
For all that I have brought upon your pure body in destruction,
And all that I have stirred around you in dust.
I apologize for everything I have written of malicious poems,
In moments of collapse,
For poetry, dear friend, is my exile and my final breath,
My purification and my nudity.
And I never want you to be marked with my shame,
So for this— I came, dear friend— to extend my apologies.
I extend my apologies.
Poem: I Resist All My Walls
Nizar Qabbani writes:
I resist all my walls… I resist my crafted reality,
Of straw and clay… I resist all the people of the cave, astrology, and magic.
Their reliance, their decay, their reproduction like cattle.
In front of me are a thousand swordsmen and executioners,
And behind me are a thousand butchers and slaughterers.
Oh my Lord! Is there no shame other than my own?
Oh my Lord? Is there no endeavor for the East beyond the limits of my belt?
Is there not a single endeavor for the East beyond the limits of my belt?
Poem: Does He Think I Am a Toy in His Hands?
Nizar Qabbani writes:
Does he think I am merely a toy in his hands?
I do not contemplate returning to him.
Today he returned, as if nothing had happened,
His innocence of children shining in his eyes,
To tell me that I am his partner in life
And that I am his only love.
He brought flowers to me… How do I respond,
When my youth is sketched on their lips? I began to remember, while fires raged in my blood,
How I sought refuge in his arms,
Hiding my head there, as if I were
A child returned to its parents.
Even the dresses I neglected,
I rejoiced in them… I danced at his feet.
I forgave him and inquired about his news,
And cried for hours on his shoulder,
Without realizing it, I left him my hands,
To sleep like a bird between his hands…
And I forgot all my grudges in a moment.
Who said I bore resentment for him?
How many times have I said I would not return to him,
Yet I did… How sweet it is to return to him!
Poem: Depression
Nizar Qabbani writes:
There is no clear answer in my mind
To your questions, oh my lady… All I know is, I grow sadder
As your eyes widen and darken.
What remains of the poet’s language?
When he uses the color gray as ink?
What remains of the vigor of poetry?
When the chair in the café becomes a country?
When the chair in the café becomes a country?
When the chair in the café becomes a country?
Poem: The World Blames Me if I Love Him
Nizar Qabbani writes:
The world blames me if I adore him
As if I were the one who created love and invented it,
As if I were the one who drew it on the petals of roses,
As if I were the one who taught the birds how to fly in the sky,
And planted it in the wheat fields,
Dissolved it in the waters of the sea.
As if I were the one who hung the beautiful moon in the sky.
The world blames me if I name the one I love or mention him,
As if I were love itself, and its mother, and its sister.
This love that came from where I never expected,
Different from all I have known,
Different from all I have read and heard.
If I had known it was a type of addiction, I would have never sunk into it.
If I had known it was a door with a constant draft, I would have never opened it.
If I had known it was a matchstick, I would never have lit it.
This love is the most intense love I have experienced.
I wish that when it came to me, arms wide open,
I had turned it away.
And I wish that before it could kill me, I had killed it.
This love I see at night,
I see on my curtains,
I see in my dress,
In my perfume, and on my bracelets.
I see it etched on my hands.
I see it engraved on my emotions.
If only they had informed me that it is a child full of mischief and noise, I would have never let it in,
And that it would break the glass in my heart, I would have kept it away.
If only they had told me it would ignite flames in mere moments,
And turn everything upside down in moments,
And dye the walls in red and blue in moments,
I would have expelled it.
Oh precious one, who has won God’s approval for me in loving him,
This love is the most beautiful I have lived,
The most glorious love I have known.
I wish when he visited me, bearing flowers,
I had adorned him with roses.
I wish when he came to me, weeping,
I had opened my doors to him and embraced him.