The Most Beautiful Poems of Hamad Zaid
Among the most beautiful poems written by the Gulf poet Hamad Zaid in the Gulf dialect are the following:
Poem: People of the South
My eyes delight every time the western breeze blows,
the colors of the sunset become mesmerizing in its presence.
Oh, my wretched state, whenever the sunset enchants her,
I’m reminded of the playful gazelle and the tales of her travels.
And my heart aches every time the playful gazelle comes to mind,
I have forbidden myself to reach for anything that I cannot bear.
Since the beloved gazelle traveled away, I have turned away from all paths,
it’s not a matter of avoiding the maidens, but she stands alone.
Since she departed from me, no beauty stole my heart except that of my beloved,
nor did I find another to whom I would dedicate my life.
Because if hearts do not remain loyal to their loved ones, then they are not hearts.
The companionship that does not return the spirit is one we do not seek.
As for loyalty, it conceals the man’s every flaw,
and neglect hides the faults of the Arabs from their men.
There is nothing harsher than parting from the people of the South,
Oh, woe to the one who departs each time she becomes upset,
The one whose anger ignites inside me like a flame.
These lands have worn me out, and they may tire from waiting for her.
She was with me as if fate constrained me from every direction,
My paths were filled with the maze of shadows and her shades.
She was my escape whenever I felt the need to flee.
She was my sky when it felt cramped for me to seek refuge with her.
Why did she challenge me when I was, in all circumstances, defeated?
Why did she deprive me from the grief of my adversaries and her adversaries?
Why does she ignore me while I’m neither cowardly nor deceitful?
Why did she undervalue my tears when I only wept for her?
She has no mercy for one who has dwelled for a year as if on fiery coals.
Her tears could not affect the love that the ruins had mourned,
She did not fear destroying the years that built us brick by brick.
She never considered showing compassion for my state or her own.
Tell her that if she does not dissolve, I will make her melt away.
Tell her that if she does not care for me, I am willing to call for her.
If this mistake brings me remorse, I will erase all my sins.
If she brings forth a good deed, let her know it multiplies tenfold.
I will spread for her a home and gather nations from my ribs.
And I will elevate her to a status no one has ever reached.
If I am wrong, I am still not without faults.
Sin is forgiven, and people are rewarded according to their deeds.
The distance is harsh, and separation constricts the spacious heart.
And I have grown weary of searching for tricks to win her back.
Tell her to return; I am not forced to bear this distance.
Or let it be decreed upon me that it is not about her,
Otherwise, I will avoid this folly and leave the distance and repent.
Otherwise, it will declare the folly that will not cease to be hers.
Enough of distress; the circumstances are closed from every side.
I have carried different burdens of worries and shapes.
I can only hope that every time a breeze blows against my chest,
My eyes long for the South and turn back to her state.
And the issue is that whenever my eyes yearn for the South,
The playful gazelle comes to mind and tales of her travels.
Indeed, whenever I recall the playful gazelle,
I have forbidden myself to reach for something that I cannot bear.
Poem: My Problem
My problem is that I never accounted for their distance,
I embraced them on the reminiscence of a poem and a voice,
A sound that reverberates from its podium, and the speech is unmatched.
There are no tears shed by my dear friends before me, and I am deceived,
Neither does my sorrow flow for the precious nor does it run dry.
Every moment spent with me is merely a memory of departed friends,
And the torment that remains is the fiercest and most perilous.
Because I avoided drowning, I passed above the clouds,
For most of my friends are like paper; I have not seen virtue flourish.
By God, I placed no curtain between hatred and camaraderie.
Even when my companions urged me into anguish, I thank them.
Yesterday weighed down upon me like a burdensome load,
Yesterday, the heaviness of yesterday unfolded bitterly.
It seems that calamities only come from those near to us,
Beware, O envy, how can they gather them and then vanish?
How the years that were given to me scattered them,
May God not bless the companion that is angered by mere words of reproach.
And may God gather those men who were parted once,
The friend who brings me nothing but suffering from companionship.
It is decreed upon me that if he does not abandon me, then I shall be the one to leave him.
Whoever opens a door to my separation will find twenty more opening in return.
If my friend cannot value my friendship, I will not value his.
I have disciplined myself every time I prepare for a journey.
I do not turn my face away from ambition until it brings me news,
For if they leave, I am free from them until the Day of Judgment.
And if they wound me, tell them they stirred nothing within me.
Look, they have mouths around the tongue, or take a response from me.
The best remedy for those who try to provoke you is to belittle them.
I was not concerned with them as a child; now I must regard them as youths.
The companion I did not preserve for a fateful hour, I will not preserve.
See, I gathered their papers into a book and closed the book tight.
O time, gather what you can; scatter what you must,
He who fears drought must leave behind the mirage.
And he who is not akin to the darkness and its loneliness should not stay awake.
After the despondency of yesterday, I can no longer bear the distress.
Goodness has dragged me, and I do not wish for further dragging,
I swallowed the thirst until my face burned and melted away.
I shattered my own heart before friendship could destroy it,
I lost what was absent, different from all the absence.
I have forgiven for what is not worth forgiveness,
For I am the one who has learned most from errors and their corrections.
I am the last tongue to speak in this age of chatter,
I am the poem that arose from my notebook with a million fangs.
And I am the one who gathered a million fangs into my notebook,
My eyelids weep and grieve, my strength is worn by hardships.
My tears flow freely, my laughter is rare, I have wasted most of my life,
White-haired in the minds of the Arabs; the imposing heads do not bow.
I have gathered people who have never known gathering,
I was not a wolf until those who challenged me were wolves.
I only disappeared because forgiveness comes with the power to do so.
Believe me, it is best to deliver a word of reproach to your friend.
If you do not speak it to his face, do not speak ill of him behind his back,
In this age, nothing fills the eyes of the envious but dust.
Or the fortunate… the bullet that misses him shall remind him,
And wish that when the mistake comes, it is from those who are close.
The friend whose love you have not gained, do not lose it.
Poem: My Knowledge
My knowledge of love was vast when I was just like many others,
When my laughter was a habit and my stubbornness a trademark.
My knowledge of love deepened when my passion became blind,
Before I would build love and then destroy it, only to return and destroy again.
My understanding of sorrow came when I had a heart and a conscience,
Before I saw a Muslim die at the hands of a fellow Muslim.
Night came slowly and darkened before me,
Since I recognized its feelings, a warning rang in my heart.
And the gloomy day was evident from its beginning,
A night I felt was neither unjust nor salvaging.
Like a child I underestimated, it became unbearable for me.
I became like a thread and broke the camel’s back.
The wound began in my death from where I least expected it.
I was wronged by a person I never imagined would betray me,
The friend from whom I expected gentleness had grown cruel.
A beauty reinforced its sins, while fortune served it
Do not smile; it shatters the light in the eyes of a discerning person.
And like a Moroccan sun, she remains in half-assent,
Balanced in height, neither tall nor short.
Filled with beauty from her wrist, my beauty by contrast,
In it lies a despised hue, a color different from any other.
Just as the eyelash has in the eye an ambiguous story,
It is like the flags are inverted on the shores of a creek.
And as I gathered together the remnants of brokenness,
With the blackened moon that stirs only when provoked.
It is like the wind has been calmed, then it breezes.
Poem: The Eternal Nights
Since I became aware, O endless nights,
And arrival became the most precious aspiration of a young man’s youth.
And respect did not relent unless to wretched souls,
Oh, if only in the heart of these nights there exists a value and awe for the youth!
A realm that unites the traits of shyness and arrogance,
An entity akin to a girl who enhances her charm with weight and snobbishness.
When she arrived, testing me during the era of ignorance,
I came to her as a man adorned in the traditions of the Prophet’s companions.
She withholds gifts from me and finds joy in my suffering.
I lived in a compassionate heart that detests oppression and fears it,
But I wonder about the end of her journey and the last present.
It is true that poems are the first grief of a wounded heart,
And those who know you, O nights, you are more than a mere sentiment.
And whoever swears by your soil must accept what fate has delivered,
Who can impose his ambition in these tumultuous times?
Who among the people dares to leave you when you are your own soil?
The question repeats itself, and the answer remains generic.
Oh, I wish you were not merely generic, O answer!
The merciful betrays the ignorant, and the friend forgets his friend.
And hearts opposed to their wishes became similar,
And creation does not weigh its goodness with benevolence and warm protection.
We all laugh in the face of a smiling face, yet the betrayal persists.