Painful and Sad Poems
Below are some prominent painful and sad poems:
Poem: This Is Me by Nizar Qabbani
I have become addicted to my sorrows,
And now I fear that I will never mourn.
I have been stabbed a thousand times,
And it pains me that I may not be stabbed again.
I have been cursed in every language,
And it troubles me that I may not be cursed.
I have been hanged on the wall of my poems,
And my last will was…
That I should not be buried.
All the countries became alike,
For I see myself neither there nor here.
All the women became alike,
For the body of Mary in the darkness is like Mona.
My poetry was never a trivial game,
Nor a moonlit leisure.
I write poetry, my lady,
To know who I am.
Oh my lords:
I travel in the train of my tears.
Do poets ride anything but the trains of anguish?
I consider inventing water,
For poetry makes every dream possible.
And I think of inventing the flute,
So the poor may feast upon (the bounty) after me.
If they seize my homeland of childhood,
I will have made the poem my homeland.
Oh my lords:
The sky is very vast,
But the usurers who have shared our inheritance,
And shared our homelands,
And shared our bodies,
Have left us no place to stand.
Oh my lords:
I have fought an era unmatched in its ugliness,
And I have opened the festering wound of my tribe.
I am not concerned
With the street vendors,
Or the court poets,
Or those who have made writing a trade,
Like prostitution.
Oh my lords:
Excuse me if I have troubled you,
I am not obliged to declare my repentance.
This is me,
This is me,
This is me.
Poem: I Tell Them as Separation Has Come by Ma’ref Al-Rasafi
I tell them as separation has begun,
Take it slow, for the space has become tight.
You departed like the moons and showed no mercy,
Wishing for the unspoken longing.
My heart flies above your heads,
And my tears flow beneath your feet.
May God relieve those who pour forth tears,
With the blood of lovers that is shed.
Eyes remain black for the maidens,
Even if the lovely white were forgotten.
When will the heart awaken, having been served
A cup overflowing with love’s intoxication?
People are no different than those in mockery,
In the tumult of sorrows that pierce through.
It was as if no darts struck me,
And no roof was struck by their shadows.
I wander among the ruins like a prisoner,
Chewing on the bonds that choke my arm.
Cold steel in the blame of my heart,
For it cannot be undone if the path is crossed.
Poem: Because I Am a Stranger by Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab
Because I am a stranger,
And my beloved Iraq is far,
And I am here in longing,
For it, to it I call: Iraq.
The echo returns to me with sobs,
What the echo erupts echoing wide.
I feel that I have crossed the void,
Into a realm of darkness that doesn’t respond.
Or if I shake the branches,
Nothing but stones fall instead.
Stones,
Stones, without fruits,
Even the eyes are stone,
And so is the gentle air,
Stones wet with some blood,
Stones my calls echo to, and the rock of my mouth,
And my legs, a wind roaming the wastelands.
Poem: Exile by Ahmad Matar
Burn my ships in my exile,
Is it because I have been removed from my kin and homeland?
And I have drunk the cup of humiliation and trials,
And grief has snatched my heart away?
I’ve melted from sorrow’s grip,
Is it because I sailed despite the raging winds,
Searching for time in the lands of enchantment?
And I try to hold back the fire of oppression from my bloom,
And from my art.
You’ve disabled my dreams,
And burned the encounter with the flame of despair?
I do not mind cutting the strings,
Carried on my coffin,
Lonely in a whirl of poverty and sadness.
I do not mind kissing death,
But it troubles me
To buy the sweetness of life
With the bitterness of submission to idols.
And from this calamity that demands my emotions,
Not to be felt what I feel,
And the boundaries pour forth like rain upon my desires
Without limits.
As if I had come, cutting the chains on my hands,
With your hands the chains I widen!
And indeed, I have courts of separation,
With the dowry of patience, to return.
Drunk with joy of dawn to come,
So you loosen the reins: I shall not return.
So I am left to my sobs,
And I melt in my lament!
I unleashed the sails of tears,
On the waters of secrets and public:
I will not return.
So burn my ships in my exile,
And toss away the sails,
And mark time’s hands over the meeting.
And seize my heart,
If you are pleased with the low price!
But for me, there is a homeland,
Its face spattered with the blood of the comrades,
Lost in the world,
And it lost me,
And the heart of a mother burdened with sorrow and anguish,
Who loved me,
While tears betrayed her.
So it betrays me,
And pulls me,
And pulls me,
And pulls me;
But I will not accept to let her heart wear my shroud.
I am, oh beloved,
A feather in the storm of trials.
I yearn for my homeland,
And your eyes deter me.. oh homeland,
So I find myself torn between you two.
Shall I depart from the refuge of Aden to Aden?
How I long, at the hour of departure,
For the dawn wind to carry me away,
So I could don my body,
To become a homeland for my heart
Within the homeland!
Poem: Is It a Dust in Your Eye or a Blindness in the Eye? by Al-Khansa
Is it a dust in your eye, or a blindness in the eye?
Or did it shed tears when your loved ones left?
It is as if my eyes, to his memory,
Are waves flowing across my cheeks in torrents.
She cries for Sakhr; she holds memory,
And beneath him lies the new grave’s veil.
Al-Khansa cries, but cannot cease,
As long as she has the echo of his longing.
Al-Khansa weeps for Sakhr, and justly so,
As fate has proven that time can harm.
There must be a death in life’s passages,
And time knows transition and turns.
In you was Abu ‘Amr who ruled you,
What a noble ruler for the calling arms.
Sturdy and steadfast if they block him,
And brave in war, generous against enemies.
O Sakhr, bearer of water, noble in lineage,
In his watering holes, there is no shame.
The lion walks into the struggle without fear,
With weapons: fangs and claws.
And it isn’t a plural on a door where it flows,
To announce its secret and the hidden meaning.
It runs as long as it runs; but when it remembers,
It was surely a time of coming and going.
Days do not fatten you where it pastures if it grazes,
It has only the yearn and a cycling season.
On that day I had a broken bond with me,
As if time had a word and a lesson.
Sakhr has a master who loved his calamity,
Whose news was passed to me before the pain.
I spent the night awake watching the star,
Until the veil fell beneath the depths of the stars.
I did not see him as a neighbor exchanging visits,
For he was at home when his neighbor is absent.
And I do not see him passing in his dishes,
But he is prominent in his empty plate.
And the one who feeds the people was full-bodied during hunger,
In those droughts, he was generous and spendthrift.
He had been my depth; he was from every lineage
So condemned, for what had lived lacked this quality;
Like the red-eyed man, his youth has not run dry,
As if under the folds of the cloak there are walls.
His skin glows, illuminating the night with his essence,
His fathers were of those who grew up free.
The heir of glory is blessed with virtues,
Perfect and bold among the proud.
With branches from a noble tribe, not to be belittled,
Skin of the formidable is fierce and formidable.
Inside a grave, he resides while we remember him,
Within the remains are fragments and stones.
Hands freed for good with traits of kindness,
Sturdy and foremost in good deeds.
Let the mourners mourn for him,
A time of sorrow rich in suffering and distance.
And with a company slow in their path to ruin,
None to stop him when he cries for help?
Poem: How Can I Not Grieve?
How can I not grieve, I wonder?
They said it many times,
And I kept saying, “I will see.”
Days pass, yet I remain as I am,
They mock my attachment to a bygone past.
How can I not grieve when I have given my life,
And my heartbeats and sighs, my tears and sorrows,
My stumbles and my poems, and my promises,
To one who quickly abandoned them to death?
How can I not grieve when my dreams have shattered,
My pens have broken, and my aspirations have scattered?
My pains surged, and my hopes lay scattered,
My afflictions recurred, and my melodies were severed.
How can I not grieve when the sun has set,
And the candles melted, and the fates softened?
The end has come, and the beginning was lost,
The path has vanished, and the return is impossible,
And life is dead.
How can I not grieve when the beloved sold me,
The uncle disappeared, and the heart starved,
The body trembled, and sleep was served in measure?
And the grave, for sale, has become a commodity?
How can I not grieve when the night has turned to day,
And neighbor has abandoned neighbor?
And the bird has flown from its nest,
And the wise finds my state bewildering?
The train has passed me by,
And a thousand nails pierced my heart,
And fever has turned my body to fire,
And the believer has become one of the infidels?
How can I not grieve when sorrow draws its pain from me,
And fate learns the essence of ability from me?
And patience learns endurance from my being,
And my heart teaches love through me?
Loyalty learns fidelity from me,
The beloved learns affection through my essence,
And the clever learns wisdom from my heart.
The fool learns nothing but stupidity through me,
And the deceived learns of deceit from my thoughts.
And those who forget learn forgetting from me,
The ones who remember learn remembering through me.
Life learns how to be living from my heart,
And decay learns how to die from me.
From me—no, do not learn anything from me.
How can I not grieve when friends have departed,
And deserted, and forgotten?
Neglected and deceived, betrayed and treacherous,
Left alone, I wish they had never come.
How can I not grieve when truth is a lie,
And the gift is rebuffed, and the smile is stripped?
When reality is constrained and my beloveds obscured?
When hearts are turned and necks taut,
When veins are troubled and blood is drained?
When life is cursed… Ask.. Ask where is certainty?
For I find nothing but hidden treachery
From that soul and spirit and body and fate.
And love and longing and passion and the cursed time.
Do not turn, O eyes, do not seek a soul,
For this land is unfit for human living.
For here, there are only monsters, ghosts, and trees,
And sands, winds, lifelessness, and vermin.
And this empty house, inhabited by the thin,
The weeping, hungry soul craving a cup of nostalgia.
That curved, curled figure lying on its memories,
On its pains, on its words,
Owner of a broken heart.