¤¦¤( Poem Lovers )¤¦¤

Rita And The Rifle

2012-11-12T20:48:00.000+02:00

Between Rita and my eyes

There is a rifle

And whoever knows Rita

Kneels and prays

To the divinity in those honey-colored eyes

And I kissed Rita

When she was young

And I remember how she approached

And how my arm covered the loveliest of braids

And I remember Rita

The way a sparrow remembers its stream

Ah, Rita

Between us there are a million sparrows and images

And many a rendezvous

Fired at by a rifle

Rita's name was a feast in my mouth

Rita's body was a wedding in my blood

And I was lost in Rita for two years

And for two years she slept on my arm

And we made promises

Over the most beautiful of cups

And we burned in the wine of our lips

And we were born again

Ah, Rita!

What before this rifle could have turned my eyes from yours

Except a nap or two or honey-colored clouds?

Once upon a time

Oh, the silence of dusk

In the morning my moon migrated to a far place

Towards those honey-colored eyes

And the city swept away all the singers

And Rita

Mahmoud Darwish

Not A Star

2012-11-04T21:58:00.001+02:00

Neither a star,

nor a prophet's inspiration,

nor a face praying to the moon, is Mihyar.

Here he comes

like a pagan spear,

invading the land of letters,

bleeding

and raising to the sun

his bleeding.

Here he is,

wearing the nakedness of stone

and praying to the caves.

Here he is,

cuddling the light Earth.

I Come From There

2012-10-28T11:11:00.001+02:00

I come from there and I have memories

Born as mortals are, I have a mother

And a house with many windows,

I have brothers, friends,

And a prison cell with a cold window.

Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,

I have my own view,

And an extra blade of grass.

Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,

And the bounty of birds,

And the immortal olive tree.

I walked this land before the swords

Turned its living body into a laden table.

I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother

When the sky weeps for her mother.

And I weep to make myself known

To a returning cloud.

I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood

So that I could break the rule.

I learnt all the words and broke them up

To make a single word: Homeland.....

Copyright:

Mahmoud Darwish

Identity Card

2012-10-22T19:35:00.000+02:00

Write down !

I am an Arab

And my identity card number is fifty thousand

I have eight children

And the ninth will come after a summer

Will you be angry?

Write down!

I am an Arab

Employed with fellow workers at a quarry

I have eight children

I get them bread

Garments and books

from the rocks..

I do not supplicate charity at your doors

Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber

So will you be angry?

Write down!

I am an Arab

I have a name without a title

Patient in a country

Where people are enraged

My roots

Were entrenched before the birth of time

And before the opening of the eras

Before the pines, and the olive trees

And before the grass grew

My father.. descends from the family of the plow

Not from a privileged class

And my grandfather..was a farmer

Neither well-bred, nor well-born!

Teaches me the pride of the sun

Before teaching me how to read

And my house is like a watchman's hut

Made of branches and cane

Are you satisfied with my status?

I have a name without a title

Write down!

I am an Arab

You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors

And the land which I cultivated

Along with my children

And you left nothing for us

Except for these rocks..

So will the State take them

As it has been said?!

Therefore!

Write down on the top of the first page:

I do not hate poeple

Nor do I encroach

But if I become hungry

The usurper's flesh will be my food

Beware..

Of my hunger

And my anger!

Mahmoud Darwish

He Is Calm, and I Am Too

2012-10-19T20:19:00.000+02:00

He is calm,

And I am too.

He drinks lemon tea,

And I drink coffee.

(this is the only thing different about us)

He, like me, wears a loose striped shirt,

And I stare, like him, in a monthly magazine.

He does not see me as I eye him discreetly;

I do not see him as he eyes me discreetly.

He is calm,

And I am too.

He asks the waiter for something;

I ask the waiter for something.

A black cat passes between us,

And I touch its night of fur;

He touches its night of fur.

I do not tell him: The sky is
clear today, More blue;

He does not tell me: the sky is clear today.

He is the seen and the one who sees;

I am the seen and the one ho sees.

I move my left leg;

He moves his right leg.

I hum the melody of a song;

He hums the melody of a song.

I wonder: Is he the mirror wherein I see myself?

Then I look towards his eyes, and I do not see him.

I leave the coffee shop in a hurry,

I think: Maybe he is a killer,

Or maybe he is only a man passing through

And though I am a killer.

Do Not Ask Me

2012-10-14T06:26:00.000+02:00

Do not ask me, the name of my love

I fear for you, from the fragrance of perfume

contained in a bottle, if you smashed it,

drowning you, in spilled scent

By God, if you even croaked a letter,

Lilacs would pile up on the paths

Do not look for it here in my chest

I have left it to run with the sunset

You can see it in the laughter of doves

In the flutter of butterflies

In the ocean, in the breathing of dales

and in the song of every nightingale

in the tears of winter, when winter cries

in the giving of a generous cloud

Do not ask about his lips...as elegant as the sunset

And his eyes, a shore of purity

And his waist, the sway of a branch

Charms...which no book has contained

Nor described by a literate's feather

And his chest, his throat, enough for youI won't breath his name, my lover...

Nizar qabane

On Entering the Sea

2012-10-08T00:05:00.001+02:00

Love happened at last,

And we entered God's paradise,Sliding

Under the skin of the water Like fish.

We saw the precious pearls of the sea

And were amazed.

Love happened at last

Without intimidation...with symmetry of wish.

So I gave...and you gave And we were fair.

It happened with marvelous ease

Like writing with jasmine water,

Like a spring flowing from the ground.

Nizar qabane

Today I saw a butterfly

2012-09-30T19:10:00.000+02:00

Today I saw a butterfly,

as it floated in the air;

Its wings were spread in splendor,

Unaware that I was there.

It was such a thing of beauty,

It was a sight to see;

It was the perfect masterpiece,

Full of grace and majesty.

I found myself thinking,

to what can this compare?

And then, of course, I thought of you,

And I wished that you were there.

God sure was extra careful,

When He formed and fashioned you;

You too, became a masterpiece,

Yet God is still not through.

He's daily making changes,

that other folks can't see;

You're already true perfection,At least you are to me.

~ Author Unknown ~

-->

The Epic of Sadness

2012-09-25T19:17:00.000+02:00

Your love taught me to grieve

and I have been in need, for centuries

a woman to make me grieve

for a woman, to cry upon her arms

like a sparrow

for a woman to gather my pieces

like shards of broken crystal

Your love has taught me, my lady, the worst habits

it has taught me to read my coffee cups

thousands of times a night

to experiment with alchemy,

to visit fortune tellers

It has taught me to leave my house

to comb the sidewalks

and search your face in raindrops

and in car lights

and to peruse your clothes

in the clothes of unknowns

and to search for your image

even.....even.....

even in the posters of advertisements

your love has taught me

to wander around, for hours

searching for a gypsies hair

that all gypsies women will envy

searching for a face, for a voice

which is all the faces and all the voices...

Your love entered me...my lady

into the cities of sadness

and I before you, never entered

the cities of sadness

I did not know...

that tears are the person

that a person without sadness

is only a shadow of a person

Your love taught me

to behave like a boy

to draw your face with chalk

upon the wall

upon the sails of fishermen's boats

on the Church bells, on the crucifixes,

your love taught me, how love,

changes the map of time...

Your love taught me, that when I love

the earth stops revolving,

Your love taught me things

that were never accounted for

So I read children's fairytales

I entered the castles of Jennies

and I dreamt that she would marry me

the Sultan's daughter

those eyes..

clearer than the water of a lagoon

those lips...

more desirable than the flower of pomegranates

and I dreamt that I would kidnap her like a knight

and I dreamt that I would give

her necklaces of pearl and coral

Your love taught me, my lady,

what is insanity

it taught me...how life may pass

without the Sultan's daughter arriving

Your love taught me

How to love you in all things

in a bare winter tree,

in dry yellow leaves

in the rain, in a tempest,

in the smallest cafe, we drank in,

in the evenings...our black coffee

Your love taught me...to seek refuge

to seek refuge in hotels without names

in churches without names...

in cafes without names...

Your love taught me...how the night

swells the sadness of strangers

It taught me...how to see Beirut

as a woman...a tyrant of temptation

as a woman, wearing every evening

the most beautiful clothing she possesses

and sprinkling upon her breasts perfume

for the fisherman, and the princes

Your love taught me how to cry without crying

It taught me how sadness sleeps

Like a boy with his feet cut off

in the streets of the Rouche and the Hamra

Your love taught me to grieve

and I have been needing, for centuries

a woman to make me grieve

for a woman, to cry upon her arms

like a sparrow

for a woman to gather my pieces

like shards of broken crystal

Nizar qabane

Increase your passion for me

2012-09-22T12:42:00.000+03:00

Increase your passion for me.

My most beautiful fit of madness.

Make me drown, oh my lady,

For the sea calls me.

Make me more dead.

Perhaps as death kills me, I can truly live.

And, oh most beautiful woman in the universe, love me!

I am the one who loved you till the fire burned me, love me!

If you allow me, I would love for you to live within my eyes

Your love is my map, the world's map no longer matters.

I am the oldest city of sorrow,

My pain has spread, like a flock of doves from Baghdad to China.

Oh bird of my heart,

Oh forest of olives,

Oh taste of ice and taste of fire.

My doubt, and belief.

I tremble from the unknown, so strengthen me.

I tremble from the darkness, so hold me.

I tremble from the cold, so cover me.

And sit next to me and sing to me.

For, since the beginning of creation,

I have searched for a home for my forehead.

And a woman's love that takes me to the edge of the sun, and throws me in

Brightness of my life, my lantern, representation of my vineyard.

Make me a bridge with the scent of oranges.

And place me like an ivory comb, in the darkness of your hair, and forget me

For your sake I freed my women

And I left the history behind me

And I canceled my birth Certificate

And I Cut off all my arteries

Nizar qabane

Add Me In Yours Favorite

I want you a woman

2012-09-16T21:09:00.000+03:00

I want you a woman

Since civilisation is a woman

Sonnet is a woman

Spike is a woman

Perfume bottle is a woman

Paris, between the cities, is a woman

Beirut remains, though the wounds, a woman

In the name of those who want to compose poems,

Be a woman

In the name of those who want to create love,

Be a woman

In the name of those who want to know God,

Be a woman

Oh lovely rose! Be a woman.

Nizar qabane

Add Us In Yours Favorite

Bread, hashish and moon

2012-09-14T14:44:00.000+03:00

When the moon is born in the east,

And the white rooftops drift asleep

Under the heaped-up light,

People leave their shops and march forth in groups

To meet the moon

Carrying bread, and a radio, to the mountaintops,

And their narcotics.

There they buy and sell fantasies

And images,

And die - as the moon comes to life.

What does that luminous disc

Do to my homeland?

The land of the prophets,

The land of the simple,

The chewers of tobacco, the dealers in drug?

What does the moon do to us,

That we squander our valor

And live only to beg from Heaven?

What has the heaven

For the lazy and the weak?

When the moon comes to life they are changed to corpses,

And shake the tombs of the saints,

Hoping to be granted some rice, some children...

They spread out their fine and elegant rugs,

And console themselves with an opium we call fate

And destiny

My Lady

2012-09-13T04:06:00.000+03:00

the one who was made of Cutton and Clouds

the one who i can call her a Rain of Jewel

and the River of Nahound

and a Row forest

the one who siwmmes in the water of my heart like a fish

the one who lives in the eyes like a folk of pigeons

nothing will change in my emotion

nor my feelings

not even in my heart or my faithbecause i'll stay in the islamic religion.؛

I Have No Power

2012-09-12T19:19:00.001+03:00

-->

I have no power to change you

or explain your ways

Never believe a man can change a woman

Those men are pretenders

who think

that they created woman

from one of their ribs

Woman does not emerge from a man's rib's, not ever,

it's he who emerges from her womb

like a fish rising from depths of water

and like streams that branch away from a river

It's he who circles the sun of her eyes

and imagines he is fixed in place

I have no power to tame you

or domesticate you

or mitigate your first instincts

This task is impossible

I've tested my intelligence on you

also my dumbness

Nothing worked with you, neither guidance

nor temptation

Stay primitive as you are

I have no power to break your habits

for thirty years you have been like this

for three hundred years

a storm trapping in a bottle

a body by nature sensing the scent of a man

assaults it by naturetriumphs over it by nature

Meet In Winter

2012-09-11T12:21:00.000+03:00

We shall meet in winter

At the rail station...in Baghdad:

Two strange sparrows,

Wet and shivering,

Under the rain,

Migrated from the farthest south

At the corner of the Gulf.

Nestless; we've lost our home.

We've lost all the addresses

Of our friends.

There remained alone

Known to no one but the rain.

Letter from under the Water

2012-09-10T11:31:00.001+03:00

؛
If you were my friend,

Help me to leave you...

Or if you were my beloved,

Help me to be healed of you...

If I had known

that the sea was so deep,

I would not have dove in...

If I had known

That Love was so perilous,

I would not have fallen in love.

If I had known my end,

I would not have begun.

I longed for you,

So teach me not to crave...

Teach me

how to pull up the roots of your love

From the depths.

Teach me

how tears may die in the eyes,

And love may pass away,

And yearnings commit suicide.

Teach me

How to rebel against you,

And to be saved from the sword of yearning.

I remained after you

A book with torn papers...!

You are all my past and present

And all the days of my living...

My love for you is poetic love

So why do you kill poetry in me?

My love for you is watery

So why do you push me to the rock?

Oh you whom I bestowed the sun’s light,

So why did you give me darkness in return...

I presented you the forests,

So why did you give me the desert?

You tour in the land

While you let the tempest chew my flesh...

I am in the water

While your voice is coming to me

From under the water,

And the resemblances of your face

Coming out for me like a giant,

Coming from the depth of water...

The lines of your hand chase me

Even in water…

Ah, if my memory would drown,

If your face and history would drown

If thousands of things would drown...

Ah how worn out I feel…!

Nizar qabane

The greatest pain

2012-09-09T11:32:00.000+03:00

The greatest pain in life is not to die, but to be ignored

The greatest pain in life, is not to die, but to be forgotten

When you show someone your innermost thoughts and he laughs in your face
.

For friends to always be too busy to console you when you need

someone to lift your spirits

When it seems like the only person who cares about you, is you

Life is full of pain, but does it ever get better

Will people ever care about each other , and make time for those who

are in need?
.

Each of us has a part to play in this great play we call life

Each of us has a duty to mankind to tell our friends we love them

If you do not care about your friends you will not be punishedYou will simply be ignored forgotten as you have done to others
.

Shall I compare ?

2012-09-07T19:26:00.000+03:00

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

And summer's lease hath all too short a date

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines

And often is his gold complexion dimmed ;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines

By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade

when in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe, or
eyes can see,So long lives this. and this gives life to thee .

Copyright:
William Shakespeare

A Damascene Moon

2012-09-06T17:12:00.000+03:00

؛

Green Tunisia, I have come to you as a lover

On my brow, a rose and a book

For I am the Damascene whose profession is passion

Whose singing turns the herbs green

A Damascene moon travels through my blood

Nightingales . . . and grain . . . and domes

From Damascus, jasmine begins its whiteness

And fragrances perfume themselves with her scent

From Damascus, water begins . . . for wherever

You lean your head, a stream flows

And poetry is a sparrow spreading its wings

Over Sham . . . and a poet is a voyager

From Damascus, love begins . . . for our ancestors

Worshipped beauty, they dissolved it, and they melted away

From Damascus, horses begin their journey

And the stirrups are tightened for the great conquest

From Damascus, eternity begins . . . and with her

Languages remain and genealogies are preserved

And Damascus gives Arabism its formAnd on its land, epochs materialize

؛

Copyright:
Nizar Qabbani

raise me more love ..

2012-09-04T17:59:00.002+03:00

raise me more love… raise me

my prettiest fits of madness

O’ dagger’s journey… in my flesh

and knife’s plunge…

sink me further my lady…

the sea calls me

add to me more death …

perhaps as death slays me… I’m revived

your body is my map…

the world's map no longer concerns me…

I am the oldest capital of sadness…

and my wound a Pharaonic engraving

my pain…. extends like an oil patch

from Beirut… to China…

my pain… a caravan…dispatched

by the Caliphs of "A’Chaam"… to China…

in the seventh century of the "Birth"…

and lost in a dragon’s mouth…

bird of my heart… "my April"

O’ sand of the sea, and forests of olives

O’ taste of snow, and taste of fire…

my heathen flavor, and insight

I feel scared of the unknown… shelter me

I feel scared of the darkness… embrace me

I feel cold… cover me up

tell me children stories…

rest beside me…

Chant to me…

since from the start of creation

I’ve been searching for a homeland to my forehead…

for a woman’s hair…

that writes me on the walls… then erases me…

for a woman’s love… to take me

to the borders of the sun… and throws me…

from a woman’s lip… as she makes me

like dust of powdered gold…

shine of my life. my fan

my lantern. declaration of my orchards

stretch me a bridge with the scent of oranges…

and place me like an ivory comb…

in the darkness of your hair… then forget me

I am a drop of water… ambivalent

remaining in the notebook of October

your love crushes me…

like a mad horse from the Caucasus throwing me under its hoofs…

and gargles with the water of my eyes…

add to me more fury… add to me

O’ prettiest fits of my madness

for your sake I set free my women

and effaced my birth certificate

and cut all my arteries

Words

2012-09-02T01:05:00.003+03:00

؛
؛

He lets me listen, when he moves me,

Words are not like other words

He takes me, from under my arms

He plants me, in a distant cloud

And the black rain in my eyes

Falls in torrents, torrents

He carries me with him, he carries me

To an evening of perfumed balconies

And I am like a child in his hands

Like a feather carried by the wind

He carries for me seven moons in his hands

and a bundle of songs

He gives me sun, he gives me summer

and flocks of swallows

He tells me that I am his treasure

And that I am equal to thousands of stars

And that I am treasure, and that I am

more beautiful than he has seen of paintings

Between us

2012-08-28T22:18:00.000+03:00

Between us

twenty years of age

between your lips and my lips

when they meet and stay

the years collapse

the glass of a whole life shatters.

***

The day I met you I tore up

all my maps

an my prophecies

like an Arab stallion I smelled the rain

of you

before it wet me

heard the pulse of your voice

before you spoke

undid your hair with my hands

before you had braided it

***

There is nothing I can do

nothing you can do

what can the wound do

with the knife on the way to it?

***

Your eyes are like a night of rain

in which ships are sinking

and all I wrote is forgotten

In mirrors there is no memory.

A Letter from a Stupid Woman

2012-08-28T19:06:00.002+03:00

My dear Master,

This is a letter from a stupid woman

Has a stupid woman before me, written to you?

My name? Lets put names aside

Rania, or Zaynab

or Hind or Hayfa

The silliest thing we carry, my Master - are names

My Master:

I am frightened to tell you my thoughts

I am frightened - if I did -

that the heavens would burn

For your East, my dear Master,

confiscate blue letters

confiscate dreams from the treasure chests of women

Practices suppression, upon the emotions of women

It uses knives...

and cleavers...

to speak to women

and butchers spring and passions

and black plaits

And your East, dear Master,

Manufactures the delicate crown of the Eastfrom the skulls of women

؛

Copyright:
Nizar Qabbani

When I love you

2012-08-28T09:02:00.000+03:00

؛ When I love you
A new language springs up,
New cities, new countries discovered.
The hours breathe like puppies,
Wheat grows between the pages of books,
Birds fly from your eyes with tiding of honey,
Caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs,
The mangoes fall all around, the forests catch fire
And Nubian drums beat.
*******
When I love you your breasts shake off their shame,
Turn into lightning and thunder, a sword, a sandy storm.
When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate
Against the ages of repression
And the ages
Of revenge against the laws of the tribe.
And I, when I love you,
March against ugliness,
Against the kings of salt,
Against the institutionalization of the desert.
And I shall continue to love you until the world flood arrives;I shall continue to love you untill the world flood arrives.
؛ Copyright: Nizar Qabbani

The School of Love

2012-08-27T18:31:00.003+03:00

The School of Love

Your love taught me how to grieve,

While I have been in need, for centuries,

For a woman to make me grieve,

And to cry upon her arms

Like a sparrow...

For a woman to gather my pieces

Like clusters of broken crystal..

Your love taught me, my lady, my worst habits.

It taught me how to foresee my coffee- cup

Thousands of times every night,

To experience the medicine of herbalists,

And knock on the doors of the fortune tellers.

It taught me to come out of my house,

In order to comb the sidewalks,

And chase your face in the raindrops,

In the lights of cars,

In the unknown apparels,

And even to run after your spectrum

In the posters of advertisements,
And gather millions of stars from your eyes.

¤¦¤( Poem Lovers )¤¦¤

Rita And The Rifle

Not A Star

I Come From There

Identity Card

He Is Calm, and I Am Too

Do Not Ask Me

On Entering the Sea

Today I saw a butterfly

The Epic of Sadness

Increase your passion for me

I want you a woman

Bread, hashish and moon

My Lady

I Have No Power

Meet In Winter

Letter from under the Water

The greatest pain

Shall I compare ?

Copyright:William Shakespeare

A Damascene Moon

raise me more love ..

Words

Between us

A Letter from a Stupid Woman

When I love you

The School of Love

Copyright:
William Shakespeare