Poem: I Will Conceal My Longing in My Heart and Keep It to Myself
Written by Antara ibn Shaddad:
I will conceal my longing in my heart and keep it to myself,
I spend my nights awake while the reproachful sleep away.
I aspire to attain things from my time that I can never grasp,
And I remain at the mercy of those who do not show compassion.
I hope for closeness from you, O daughter of Malik,
Yet fierce flames of war separate us.
So show me a vision of your likeness and inquire
How the infatuated one fares in his restless nights.
Do not be distressed if your kin are relentless in their pursuit of my blood,
For after abandonment, I have no flesh or blood left.
Did you not hear the lament of the doves in the night?
Some of my grief and my sorrow have taught them to mourn.
No one remains, O Abla, who could define me
Except for a heart that burns and withers away as I suffer.
And those bones, hollow and withered,
Underneath them, the army of indifference prevails.
If I live after our separation, I shall not be
As I claim to be, forever devoted to Abla.
When my eyelids close in slumber, it is but a mere illusion,
I say perhaps the vision will return to offer peace.
I yearn for those places whenever
A bird sings in the thicket.
I weep from the anguish of separation, although
I am patient against the sting of the spear, if you only knew.
Poem: I Want You to Be My Beloved Until the Sky Rises
Written by Nizar Qabbani:
I want you to be my beloved until poetry triumphs over the silenced gun,
And students conquer the tear gas,
And the rose prevails against the truncheon of the police,
And libraries rise above the arms factories.
So I can reclaim the things that resemble you:
And the stray cats of Damascus that used to roam,
And the writings that were once my essence.
I desire to open all the drawers that my mother hid away,
Her wedding ring, her twisted golden bracelets,
Her rosary from Hejaz,
And a lock of my golden hair that she has preserved since my birth.
Everything, O lady, is now in a coma,
Having triumphed over the moon of poets,
Surpassing the Song of Songs,
And the verses of Lorca, Mayakovsky, and Pablo Neruda.
I want to love you, my lady,
Before my heart turns into a spare part sold in pharmacies,
As heart doctors in Cleveland.
The sky, my lady, has descended,
And the high clouds now drift on the pavement.
Plato’s Republic, the Code of Hammurabi,
The prophets’ commandments have sunk below sea level,
Therefore, the sorcerers, fortune-tellers,
And the Sufi elders advise me to love you,
Until the sky lifts once more.
Poem: As If I Love You
Written by Mahmoud Darwish:
Why do we attempt this journey
When your eyes have stripped me of the sea,
And the sand burns within us? Why do we try?
The words we left unspoken have scattered us,
And every country reflects back as a mirror,
And every mirror is but a stone.
Why do we attempt this journey?
Here they killed me,
Here they killed you. Here you witnessed the river and the epic,
And the river never tires,
Neither speaks nor feels pain.
Every day, we find a corpse,
And every day, they wear their medals.
Here, the river stood between us,
A guardian keeping the two banks
Distant like love, yet close like separation.
And there must be a guardian. Ah, there must be a guardian between us.
As if the waters that divide the banks
Were blood between two bodies.
We were here, two banks,
We were here, two bodies,
And every country reflects back as a mirror,
And every mirror is but a stone.
Why do we attempt this journey?
It seems that all the mountains have vanished,
And as if I truly love you.
The French airport was crowded with
Goods and people. All the goods are legitimate
Except for my body.
Oh, behind your eyes, my country,
I was entranced by the past that is advancing,
I lost my Damascene sword accused of defending clay,
My sword holds no opinion about the origin of the caliphate.
They misunderstood me… hung me on the tower,
And they left for repairing the guest palace.
As if I truly love you,
For I leaned against the wind.
You were the winds and you were the wings,
I sought you in the distant sky,
And I used to rent dreams—
A dream imitates its own shape,
And I sang aimlessly of a horse amidst trees,
And at the edge of the earth, the sea returned me,
Every country reflects back as a mirror,
And every mirror is but a stone.
Why do we attempt this journey?
You seem closer than my lips,
And farther than a kiss that doesn’t reach.
As if I love you,
As if leaving stalked me through your body,
As if it besieged me in the alleys of your body,
So I leave my silence upon your lips,
And I leave my voice upon the gallows step,
As if I love you.
As if leaving hides me in the islands of your body.
This expanse is wide yet narrow,
And leaving hides me in the mouth of the lily.
Reconstruct my time, for I need to know where I am to die,
It passed a day without martyrs.
Redefine my voice,
For the singer whose portrait girls draw,
Had his voice confiscated.
A day passed without martyrs,
And between the voids, I walk towards you and within you,
And I am born from a seed I cannot see,
And I play in my corpse, beneath the moon.
Why do we attempt this journey?
And every country reflects back as a mirror,
And every mirror is but a stone.
Why do we attempt this journey?
Poem: Love Me
Written by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab:
It is not my habit to deny my past that has been,
But still… everyone I loved before you did not love me,
Nor showed any kindness towards me.
I loved seven who heightened their feelings for me,
Carrying me away with their fragrances to China,
Like ships forged from the perfumes of their bosoms.
I dove into a sea of illusions and feelings,
Picking the oyster while expecting a pearl,
Yet what stings my hands and takes the nails off my fingers,
Leaves naught but water and mud from the oyster shells,
While a smile drips from my lips as tears emanate from the heart,
For all whom I loved before you did not love me.
I would place them in the balconies of imagination… and their shades unveil their features:
Ah, for one sold me out for a trifling for money,
Then her awakened mind cast her aside.
And that one… was she older or was her beauty but a lure?
She said I was unworthy, having abandoned me as soon as the dew drank,
And a blossom bloomed: did I represent her, and smell her fragrance?
I saw her yesterday at a bus stop, waiting.
I quickened my steps and distanced myself from her,
I did not want to approach her, that hag! What misfortunes does she bear?
Then I recognized her: Did you think beauty could triumph
Over a time that demolishes the walls of Babel and the phoenix claiming itself reborn?
That another’s smile could boast me near a palace and a car,
As her husband changed, growing poor, reading old newspapers at the gate,
Reluctantly recounting yesterday’s glories while her heart drowns in boredom?
And that one? The one who was my muse,
I drank poetry from her eyes and slept in her shadows,
She spread her verses over me: Her whole past
And every bit of her youth was a waiting for me along a shore where the moon
Soared and the birds slept in its embrace with the rain sprinkling memories.
She was awakened, filling the horizons with echoes,
Shaking light as her limbs quivered and the shadows of the night trembled.
Where is our summer dawn in the city of Jikur?
And a boat whispers to us as it sails in crystalline waters?
And I read while she listens, the plains, palms, and grapes dreaming in their vines?
We drifted in paths destined for no return,
The darkness of imprisonment concealed her nights with a candle,
Remembering me, she wept, yet I do not weep for her.
I have forsaken the desert nation.
The inspiration of the prophets beneath its soil in Mecca’s caverns or around its valley.
And the last of them? Ah… my wife, my fate. Was this sickness
To seat me as though I were a drunken corpse if not for her?
And now… all who I loved before you did not love me.
And you? Perhaps it is pity! I dare not find fault with God
If He has shown any compassion when I drink from you love’s cup,
Offering me chalices of bliss.
Ah, give me love, quench my thirst.
Sleep upon my chest, let me sleep upon your bosoms,
Oh the pain that has sucked my heart dry, it has devoured my veins.
Love me! For all who I loved before you have not loved me.