I confess
I disperse, like blood shed from the soil’s raindrops, the adapted capitals transformed in secrecy, between the palms of my hands, into platforms for collective laughter.
I wander my journey’s provision: thirst of the deprived my biography: alienation to the bone
I play “with the cold letter, the verge of possibility, I sing my hymns to a drop of the morning mist emerging from the back of a letter
that will not kneel
no comfort for me,
I go forward.”
2. My love “blossomed like a forbidden love
my arms collapsed throughout secret moments
of love,
of grief and yearning.
I burned
for the rose of your passion.”
”
3. Ardor” ”
Wear out,
Oh! Banners of coffins spun in the heart,
this step hurts
the retreat is a nightmare looking for a foot
my feet like my heart
are masked with white hatred,
a veil dripping through heartless times.
Blood inflamed for awakening,
so, wear out
reread my heart
banners for exiled birds,
so that I can follow in my steps
wear out… wear out
the banners collide in my heart.”
4. The secret somehow, we met. Two lonely people on the sidewalk of despair and the pricking of writing. Rain stumbled on the echo of our steps.
Still, we the drill of distance and virginity of water; we shared strangeness.
You said: “The city is fear,
and daggers like birds migrate,
so seek only my shade.
My heart expanded and poured out.
Rain came, collected the evening and the tale’s secret,
and it wasted the city.”
“5. Dialogue:
Trade me your joy” “Oh, crane to whom in meditation,
I give the wings of blood… its remainder
Of suitcases made of love and ceramic,
Shoes to await happiness.”
Fires of my passion Of songs glittering in the silence of poverty.
“Trade me your sadness
If you wish, we would bring back the miserable sea with us.
”
6. Apology: “Oh, cloud dweller!
Oh, farer in the melody of words.
Light is not sufficient
to kindle the secret lurking in this vein
and the agony of metaphor,
the hall is too narrow,
for me to read to you
the announcement of public death.
So, the unveiled moment –
The homeland that ascends in my head like a gallows.
I glimpse the treading of suspicious steps at the end
of the line,
the roaring of exhausted years
beseeches me
I read
Oh! Courage no longer fascinates me
chains notch my letters
Letters stand erect in my heart
flow as an indeclinable river,
I collect the aroma of paths,
to give my voice the perfume of the earth.
I glimpse every extended hand,
I retreat, a few steps for the creation,
the platform approaches me.
My words wave their fist and besiege me
cells of desire explode upon my lips”
Recite: ““… in the name of agony that cultivates
in the heart of people fields of wrath,
in the name of green grass emerging from rocks…”
I calm down
I resume my panic”
Accept my apology, “Oh, dweller of the mythical sea whose name is Word.
My joy is wrapped around the world,
my voice besieged as a river as it reads.”
”
Translated by Joseph T. Zeidan”
”
Awakening”
Awaken, “Oh, boughs of passion
saddle the wind with your exhausted words,”
Awaken, “like roots craving the taste of salt
like melancholic eyes, like an echo wandering in a rainy night”
Read Who is there, awaiting the bitter drug in those streets? The dangerous ambers of life…
Stare “You will find in me a mirage that awakens, and sleeps with the desert’s sun.
For my limbs are exhausted from the cold
and the chill sun
panting after the dead stone
oh, chill stone,
my limbs pierce me,
they are kindled by the banners’ bewildering chill,
the strong arms of a future nation.
My limbs are publicly plowed by death,
they resist,
like the panting of palm trees in this land,
this saline land,
they resist
I beseech this panic
To leave…
(The roads are a lighthouse,
the climate of alleys in bygone cities,
mazes
to those who cannot see the dreams of the poor on these walls.)”
Awaken “for the sweet numbness gathers my limbs sharpens me as a spear
roaming among the heart’s folds, exploding the arteries of words.”
Awaken “my voice is incapable of whispering,
it exudes blood,
perfume of the seventies,
comrades haunted by these prickings,
in doubt, I read only the soil of the past,
my blood is exuded from me.
It awakens prior to the birth… abandons me,
I search in a sinful time for a blood drop haunting me for a diaspora that knows the taste of estrangement, my homeland flees from me.
Who, among you, has not read the aches of his blood, has not questioned all his cells
about the secret of its flowing which kindles this heart secure on its throne.
I ask you,
I awoke to ask you
who among you?”
(3)
“Converse with me, smug time!
Shackles have baptized my limbs with murderous rust, my boughs with doubt
and have alienated me in my homeland”
Awaken, “Oh, handful of wind known as my homeland
bind up your grief
the bullet is a killer
if I do not vomit your thirst
… the bullet is a killer.
If I do not retain your blood within me,
…the bullet is coming
if not…”
Like the sea, “awaken
in waves or a woman
in my voice, the path of your wounds now burns
my eyes are kneaded with fear,
in them, your passion will grow
so, awaken.”
(4)
“Muhammad wandered
these roads begging for a cry
pregnant with insanity – death.
You were
a child, a rose…
A book holding the sea between its palms
was reading whiteness, delirious with one flood,
a dream exposing the confession of gulls,
steps gathering rocks in a hectic time,
a homeland, upon its edges the heart leaps with pride,
and he ended up at the guillotine.”
(5)
“In my voice cells, you sprung up like water
you were the beginning:
a night, and you are my lighthouse
rain or shine,
I passed through childhood,
this is my youth wrapped in timidity,
how can I begin
when panic questions?”
(6)
“Oh, boughs of lust panting in my palm awaken
on a homeland or a horizon…
You will find my eyes enchanted,
Shaking the boughs of fear and love…
awaken.”
”
Translated by Joseph T. Zeidan”