Category: Translation

Dedicated to: Virginia Wolf

To a bounded woman,
Burdened by a lifeless stone, that is cast between her ribs,
Branded by a repressive history that tossed her away,
She defied the frigidity of her secret,
To Plunge herself towards blind latches,
She approached death, with the ascending sweetness of eternal emaciation:
The grass did not question her when she stumbled on its daring gracefulness
The rare flower did not turn her away, though inflamed by her detrimental silence
The clouds occupied by their sad paths did not recognize the steps entreating the pebbles
The solid door did not concern itself with the echo of the slaughter, it was more wicked than her abundant breath
Her dying rosy robe did not avoid – the decayed sad over coat,
Her inky tender nails – the gasping chokes of bloodied lungs
The air did not listen to her exhausted patience
The narrow path did not evade her proclaimed agonizing shadow
No one cared…
The last papers drowned to the tone of coagulated blind blood.

At times she is revived,
Whenever blindness to her shy ink evaporates,
The tyrannical whiteness is completed silently
Whenever she artfully surpasses fleeting time,
Saved from the strenuous roving of her unconscious
Whenever she experiences the fever of love,
Turns into ash, a damaging paralysis
Whenever she welcomes the mystifying smoke,
A methodical reaction occupies her awakened lungs
Whenever she painfully embraces possessive lovers,
A despot anxiously takes the vacant grave from her
Whenever she enflames all her feathers,

1

The air looses the beating wings that do not recognize it
Whenever she is totally branded from her wasted retreat,
To the passion of a womb inclined away from the life she interprets
Whenever she falls from the heat of a defeated candle,
Misguided by the roaring fears of her hands
Whenever she listens to a dumb verse,
Desisting her separation, bailing her
Whenever she prolongs a moment of drunkenness,
Alert to the atmosphere of loss
Whenever her strength is perforated,
Elevating her above the depth of sorrow,
Whenever she leaves her depressive juvenile isolation,
Shouting about the severity of the abyss
Whenever she envisions the faces that occupy her mirrors…
Forgetting how her features have endured
Whenever she transgresses a penetrating force,
Intoxicated by the overpowering softness of her blood
Whenever, she reveals herself…
She collapses like a continuously delayed corpse.

Thus,
I distanced myself from her.

Here she is,
Casting her sins,
Thrusting her straying eyes towards a cloudy road that does not see her
Passing her weary arms on a skeleton that does not tire from her stubbornness
Grasping her will,
Before her hands were butchered she remembered,
To remove a stone weighted by poison,
Hide it in a coat inclined to transgress winter,
Confident that the obtainment of an anchor of stone,
Is adequate to drown the remaining tents that did not cover her soul.
Repelled:
From the smell of ink that does not conform with her verse
From a vacant home left to the vast fragile echo and a toothless silence

2

She weds:
Against a love that became a dream unquenched by the fall of tears
Friends that did not stop reminding her of forgotten memories
A table condemned by regret
A collapsing ink pen
Papers stumbling in the darkness of a room that has not forgotten
To elevate the flickering tremble that departs from her.

A reckless women comes forward,
Without two tenderly and courageously sculpted verses,
Erected by attentive letters,
Thrown on the edge of a neglected heater,
Watching, a gasp that begs her time of death,
An old concern,
Chanted for long to the funeral’s propagated draught.

Let us see her,
Honorably leering from the conditions of suicide
Conversing about the dissolution of sincere hopes,
Occupied with skinny hands, on papers
Yellowing rapidly from the pressure of imagination that melt from her palms,
She is infuriated,
She must accept the burden of life:
A childhood that absorbed severe repair,
A trying exhaustion for a maiden who did not forgive the memory that sculpted her purity,
An orphan compacted into a revered grave dedicated to the earth,
The collapse of youth, the possibilities of cures,
The timing of pain injected into an excessive pulse,
Electricity overloaded towards stony temples,
Increasing tremors in a lonely body that limits restrain,
The white stone’s experience a solution of an unacceptable alienation,
The release of defeats that burden the heart and curse breathing sentiments,
Ignorant pain that storm the intentions of the brain,
Treacherous nausea fizzling the emptiness…

3
Extractions of bursting veins with each coming scream…
Ultimate total paralysis not attended to by a patterned life.

That is how they control her,
Against her,
Undoubtedly.

A woman,
Occupied by a talent shattered in front of teary eyes, not accepting elimination,
Moves forward on two torn wrenched feet teetering in fear,
Reeling from painful breaths, anxiously fearing it…for it,
She sways…in a shadow that is broken behind the darkness of her eyes
Until she reaches the threshold of a cold lake,
Mined with naturally calm spots,
Whence she senses the expanse of eternal tranquility,
Cast towards a concealed story:
Distracted by a disfigured body bowing towards wet stones, forgives the Grass, sheds a burdened soul to an unknown life,
Overwhelmed by a body slowly drowning to the rhythm of a blown feather And the fish amused by their extravagantly entertaining ability to withstand all that is dry
Not forgotten by the viciously agonizing arid bodies.

To her,
To the oyster who was not delayed,
Hurling a pearl, brilliant in its isolated hideout
Concerned for it in its prolonged absence, she obtained it
Just like lines of ink…it surpassed the lake.
To her,
To her excessive tears,
Quenched by the Shreds of distorted shirts
Skillfully enabling sadness to fit each paper,
Ascending into the vast deadly night
Restrictions frighteningly paved by burdens,
Alarmed alphabets thrusting the wrist defiantly
Hysterical inclinations of a busy age,
Commanded by the tendencies of ashes,
Till the end fated to the constant agony of nausea,
Obediently experimenting with hidden ruin,
Hidden claws of secretive abilities
To eyes lead by healing rain
To bent shoulders, shamelessly lapsing
To her magnificent whiteness, like fresh milk
To an enflaming smile with the intentional awe of luminous death
To her decorative hair, falling towards a forehead that raises its issuance high
To her devastatingly isolated chest, fading, invalid to her
To her small feet that yearn to speed,
Shoeless with no restrictions
To a heart surrounded by fences supported by bias and anger
To the blood that assassinates her arteries
To the powerful dust that engulfs all her corners
To the fortunate hours of varied times that have no sympathy for the faded abyss.

To a life,
Purposely deceiving her,
No competition to the ferocity of deception.

To her
To the river’s flower,
The pride of writing,
A flashing cultural brilliance of talent

And
Skillfully,
The agony of a woman equipped with the silence of suicide
No one,
Death shies from it
Life is incapacitated by it
The ink bows to it.

From the book, “Hostage to Pain”, (Rahinat Al Alam) published in 2005 by The Arabic Research and Publication Institute.
Written by: Fawzia Al-Sindi
Translated By: Mouna Schaheen

Remote
I do not see myself,
Ashen occupied by letters
I shatter to reunite
Dark language embraces me: a descendent of hell,
Observing the ashes
Proud and listening like a bashful candelabra
I begin
I transform as I start:
Like a storm I love the air that breaks the conviction of dust,
I ascend followed by admirers
My destruction is as likely as the affairs of the body
Journeying with guilt
And proclaiming the Whitish piracy
With the speed of a cloud I incinerate the openness of the desert
Lest I succeed in defeat
Lest I pulverize and fall further
My only weapon: your disobedience
My fingers
A corpse.

Mercilessly
You must increase your ferocity
Without an apology
-The essentially difficult struggle has lost the pretext for life –
It leads the gnawing fangs to itself to cure the unknown extent of injury
They overreached as well
And also
Granted me
The descendent of ink, craving water
I unconsciously awaken to the pursuit of the letter
As I had lived
I transform into a twig when the field sees me
I fight battles that embrace me with corpses

I live
Like silence
1

The sound of death
Slaughtered by events
Without power…debating it
Free as a jug in danger of breaking
Mud never forgets the childhood of the river
Thus,
I do not hesitate as I encounter me
I doubt the unquestionable
Doubt grumbles about me
A world that surrounds me with the unacceptable
I whisper: oh fence slow down
I am not an incompetent garden
Hand me the hoe
The harshness of my feet is apparent
It tilts backwards
I blame that which will not depart
I do not stumble on false steps of childhood’s axe
I totter whenever inaudible
I was dying unnoticed
And whenever I would die
I would penetrate a well too difficult for clay
I became famous in spite of myself
In a hidden hole covered by a corpse that resembles me
I do not see people’s weariness as they descend
Towards a delayed intercession
Weighed down by the art of death,
I listen to the roaring silence
To serpents discovering crevices and enclosure
I sometimes revive,
In clothes favoring an inquiring body,
Risking the distortions of delusional blood
I revive,
Like a feather bearing the sky in a bird’s skeleton in fear of collapse
It covers the earth with the scent of air in fear of spoilage
Unwillingly I walk
Woe to the lances that oxidizes in me.

2
I will not slow down
Slowness is the profession of rottenness,
Demolishing the debris, the bravery of opposition
Without a path and I incline
The day has the scent of fire,
And night the burning of the moon
And I a stone wrenched between the scent and the fire.

Give me a hoe,
Hanging,
The sky is unable to sense the head
And the earth over there is unable to touch the shadow,
Hanging,
As if I do not know
I renovate like the mole that sees nothing except the dam.

I renovate the air
Subject to demolition each destruction lit by it
I do not know
Is he being merciful to me, hard on me
He handed me a hoe
Distant
My body does not see me
I withdraw
To embarrass the lance
I do not know
I wish the day to become night as well, so that I know
I would like to investigate what distances me from you
Unfortunately I am not granted the gift of observing
The disasters that are professionally observed
I gaze at the smoldering embers
To interpret the coal’s grave
The chalk flies around me chanting of chasm.

Like an embryo prepared for insanity, I proclaim
With each flying bird I see the frivolity of my hatred
Go away

3
Lest my sympathy reach you
No consolation for solitude
I will not shield myself with another
Like air, nothing is mine
Each tomorrow is an enemy.

Oh Lord
Emulate me

Justice is confined by unjustified freedom
I was condemned without a crime
Thus
Without a sword or bullets
Standing in front of fascists
Proclaiming war and victory at once.

I seek shelter in the embers mastery of urgency
Swindled, I exchange the soul for a soiled body
Weighted by a family that thinks that iron is my necklace
A woman weary of eyeglasses that kindles the sight
Eyes fixed in the mist

Test me oh death
Before I betray you.

Written by: Fawzeya Al Sendi
Translated by: Mouna Schaheen
Published in 2005, in the book – Hostage of Pain, (Rahinat Al Alam)- by The Arab Association of research and publishing (Al mu’as sasa Al 3arabiya Lil Dirasat Wal Nashr), Beirut, Lebanon.

Oh my mother
Buried in the earth and yet
Avowing intense love
As if YOU are the heart of heaven.

Who besides her…
A women who gave life’s insanity harmonious pleasure
Conceded to the isolated womb warmth that stimulates childhood’s blindness
Pursued developing seeds like spikes devoted to the liberating wind.

Like a rose she lived a short and torpid life
Never lamenting departure nor excessive thorns
Though the fold of each prosperous branch blooms as red as twilight
Donating to the river of passion like a bold yet sincere heart.
A candle not fearing the overwhelming darkness nor the furious violence
It instead attends to the embers that pierce the ribs
Like the wrap that enflames the well of love
And only sees earth’s water.
That is how “Mawza” treated the invasive pain
With solemn tears that smoothed the declining cheeks,
Dampening the esteemed cradle,
Every child’s wish, every mellowed gulp of consumed air.

Like the fruit that hangs affectionately to the tree not seeing tomorrow’s fall
A woman like jasmine drinks of the womb’s glimmering hope of paradise
Without forgetting the confusions of the past, does not chance the destructiveness of melancholy
Like a cloud welcoming the roar of thunder,
Offering gifts of pleasure that slowly dry up…
Alone…who else:
An expanding garden eliminating the dryness of the fence
A flame not protracted from the dread of ashes
A flimsy angel bearing the courage of the sky
With bird wings it gathers the fluffy soul embracing the inflicted terror.

1

“Mawza” embraces in the tranquil blood an originating childhood,
Never weary of the advancing night overwhelmed by moaning tears
Of a laden passing time undeterred by spears
Since the beginning of time,
The evening perceives her love of hanging.

She never despaired from the hardships that wasted her history,
Never, She was determined till the grave:
Mellow like a continuously spoiled maiden
Cunning eyes as wide as the horizon
Enclosed by thick ashy hair…sure to break the shoulders
An incomparable smile…at the least the laugh of the sea
Whiteness that annuls the snows snobbery
A forehead as high as a summit unseen by the foot of the mountain
A women of roses unburdened by aroma
Instead a dewiness that enflames the earth with the rains’ honesty.

Who besides the rain, befriended her last day
Who knows the condition of the slain and all the treacherous clouds
From which the insanity of thunder withdraws the sword of lightening
And the pouring rain,
Drop…drop…till the end of water
Till she knows-alone-the beginning of death.

She was and still is
Part of a grand house
With numerous rooms and heightened ceilings
High walls and one door always open
Surrounded by nine fetuses trembling like feathers
Children rushing to embrace the fold
Of a woman with a relentless heart,
One victories womb
And an oppressive master.

Just like that, like life
Protected by creation she rises every day
Master of wisdom, the bird’s shepherd

2

Hostage to pain, demolisher of nightmares
An infirmed heart, grantor of pleasures
Possessor of accord, an angel at hand
Amused as she turns to see hell behind the mirror
Asking her fractured body: who else besides you?

A short while before death
She was entrusting the future
To apologize for the weariness of pain,
Like a tree attempting survival in spite of the treacheries of earth
With dried roots and leaves falling every autumn
She entrusted the hemorrhaging blood to the requiem of the heart,
Overwhelmed by sorrow and a defiantly bashful lung,
An insufficient whiff of air for a gasp that labors from the roar of death,
A bloodied gasp retrieving the tenderness of life.

A victim willing the air be kind to her kneeling children
Surrounding a bed with a failing lung and shattered blood,
A difficult cure that has not seen a body like hers,
A miserable substitute forcefully extracting the soul from her satiny body
Exuberant she pleads for the voracity of hope
To tend the branches begging for air
Begging fate to release but one branch
That she may die slowly…leisurely…
A last whisper, miserably echoing her final lament
I remember, I died several times whenever she announced the delivery of pain
Whenever the dome of the lung was occupied by the soul
Ah, it is you…
No…do not say…it is her.

A while before the grave,
She was, like an eloquent bird, inhabited by thundering feathers
Bearing a bed that consumed all cures
Aware of the inquisitively approaching darkness of the grave…
Unburdened by the secrecy of its tribulations,
She prayed and praised it.

3

Does my mother’s loss squander the tortured sea
Or has the stressful ferocity of a strange burden occupied my blind solitude
A frightful yearning for a soft lap that can heel all of my life’s losses
A tender scent emitting a whisper of loving embrace for the impaired temples
The last water scented hand of childhood stretches towards me every weary night
For her a road where night never parts
Without curing its sinfully fearful expanse
A soothing smile destroys the poisoning time and penetrates deeply into my blood.

Will I see her now…
A Delighted face attended by the depth of pain
A body distressed by a silent bed and shrouded by charging pain
A throat cracking from lack of air whenever the throbbing moans increase
A pulse seduced by a widening chest ready to embrace abundance
A memory rising against deception that only ends in collapse.

A woman-nightly-unable to sleep
Concealed by a cloud overwhelming the gifts of day
Attempting to sleep in spite of thunder.

Time is always opposing the heart
She was, alone conquering a fated death
Becoming the heir of pain struck with glorified sadness
Like a possessor, like her oppressively postponed life
A woman pledged to a body that is for her and against her.

This is how:
Whenever destruction crushed her blood cells she exaggerated the gifts of hands
Whenever pain repulsed the spear penetrating her body
Without delay she unreservedly embraced her life long friends
A woman who labored for a victorious death

4

Against a slowly broken scream
A frail heart-slowly-wasting pulse.

Alone whispering to darkness an unheard moan
Silent like a butterfly awed by the heat of light
Questioning death like a final dream:
Hey… do not delay
Be kind to a body melting by the vicious collection of its tranquil soul.

This is how she pleaded each morning to God’s sanctity
She prayed constantly
Kneeling with earnest eyes
Towards a rectangular rug and seeking forgiveness for the burdens of misery
Dissolving the tenderness of a pardoned life of iron…she cannot be blamed
Cleanse this body from moans even hell cannot endure
The fear of roaring eruptions, and defiant fevers…
Each artery, each muscle begs the hearts tenderness.

I want to sleep…
My soul has been conquered by her tender voice till the end of my shrouded years
Before I leave a bed distracted by a unbearable nerve
I ask her, stricken by a disloyal memory: What do you want tomorrow?
Obliged by a demolishing whisper…splinter by splinter
Whenever I remember the oppressively disheartened expanse that captivated her
: I want to sleep.

She secured the cradle’s fighting ground and the assassinating end from childhood
She feared nothing but an intimate death…a speedy departure
She pleaded: I want to sleep
Thus…God’s generosity seized her
He initiated angels commanded by revered thievery
Snatching the soul’s thorns from her bone cells
Relaxing a woman whose only strength was in dying

5

A butterfly relaxing her wings to a welcoming horizon
And repaired to a glorious death.
Oh to the generosity of difficult departure,
A night inspired by pouring rain and sweet thunder

Like a beautiful snow “Mawza” bestowed her limbs to the abundant sunset
Echoing like a princess hopeless of another awakening
Another memory unforgotten, a voice condemning and revering the question
Another tender descendants to receive the ember of absence
Another fusing tears that arouse the sympathy of grandchildren
Another shivering soul like hers surviving a short life.

She is finally at rest
She said her final farewell
A life unheeding of the fraudulent justice she never saw.

Ablution watered her grief stricken body as water bandaging her limbs
Enclosed to the tenderness of a coffin delighted by the pressure of an unstoppable memory
The end of departure
As she walked saluted by tears to the grave
Carried on a stretcher that family members struggled to touch
A woman drinking from the grace of forgetfulness yet not forgotten
A rose that defies bereavement bandages the branches’ fold
Shrouded by the smile of absence inheriting age
Towards a sufficiently merciful bed of sand
Embracing a body of excessive roses.

Till the finality of departure…
As the soul wills the approaching admirable fate:
Be Kind to the nine seeds that have yet to inherit the violence of the earth.

Although they covered the last dirt, they spread the moist clay
They sheltered an envious witness in the stone

6

Viewing the small rose bush occupying the moon’s façade
Who suffers the imprisonment of this earth
To a withering woman concealed in the glory of the coffin.

Lest they forget her…
She was
“Mawza”
A carefree angel asking the sky:
Where is heaven?

From the book, Hostage to Pain (Rahinat Al Alam) published in 2005 by The Arabic Institute of publication and Research.
Written by: Fawzeya Al-Sendi
Translated by: Mouna Schaheen

Fawzeya Al-Sendi

Translated by Bahaa-eddin M. Mazid

Ask any war

of victory

and you will be answered

with mountains of blood,

piles of corpses.

Snow is the memory

of the dead.

Kafka –

a precious stone

perfected by the carving

of a chisel….

If I were a stone,

I would ignore

the burning

of every wave that hits me.

The affliction of a wound

is not its share of pain;

it is the body uncovered,

the soul not moving

any further.

It is the string

that stirs the hand

to draw sighs

from vocal chords.

No one can see

ahead in the desert,

mirrors of mirage swindle me,

without a single miracle

beyond the cactus heat,

which like me,

can give refuge

to cries of water….

Give me time

to spirit away like a letter

that enjoys more freedom

than I….

Give me some time,

chiefs of tribes,

to cover the tent

with my body,

and crown patience

with my soul’s

burden.

Insanity is a garden

that reason

moves away from.

The night has burned

every piece of paper,

ashamed of the pencil

that’s become

stronger.

I am so tired and worn.

Heal me, you,

where pebbles reach

the road that vanishes

beneath my steps;

hide me so that

I am not

a warship collapsing

under a fire of

pouring ink….

Writing is a tigress

passionately burning,

a gift to obey, a clever hand,

a careless arrogance

that ravishes

and sees no harm

in claws that charm…

It is the triumph of

a plague, a prophecy,

an outbreak,

a loser’s share.

It is the rhythm

of my name

Blame No one

Who else besides you trusts the deluded clouds,

Who else besides you grieves thus without cause,

Who else besides you misplaces his shoes outside the door,

Who else besides you explains the leaves’ coldness untiringly,

Who else besides you urges the globe towards oneself,

Who else has nothing,

Who else is like you, oh carcass.

Thus, you firmly incline like a road, perhaps you will reach your goal

When your rough shoes land onto a lesson unaware of existence

And once you become creative with its despicable stones

Your incline will deviate

Like one protected by his coat from a delayed snow

You descend

This the termination of your suicidal day?

At night sleep escapes you

The nearest water cup is distanced

As if you are the desert,

The phantom’s nooses are exhausted

Surrounded by a field of she-camels and tented passages

Prostrated from excessive thirst

And all the water, drowns in a carafe that repels the table    

At night, all this is yours…at night!

Attired in selfish terror

You search for sleep without yourself.

Alone,

Or alone accompanied by a family that calls you

Around you the engineered neighborhood grows

Contained in a stubborn fence that repeats the howls of the night

A house like all others entertaining the wind

It opens to a marbled threshold that rebukes you

This very day,

You fell,

Gasping unaware of the concealed fog

Reacting to the metallic sounds’ unhidden echo

Suddenly you are thrust backwards, you did not see her

She jumped like a frog touched by death

You turned the piercing key to the shyness of the door

And felt the unconscious pain on the comfort of the tile

It was then your organs rooted in heaven’s space,

It was then you breathed the fill of your bones

And turned on the river of tears…

You were not there.

What affects you,

What protects your cheeks

Whenever you depart like a weary embryo

To an unappealing zealous life.

High above her

She steals her aging features

Bent on the window’s barricade

Competing with moistened wings that comfort your lips

A world filled with innumerable claws

You quash his gifts,

Bemoaning him,

You turn your eyes inward.

Like the jasmine you detail the days’ fragrance

Extracted like unknown clay

Concealing the unknown.

Captured by the gypsies’ work

As they guard escaping temples

As they feverishly dance on the scorching coal

As they tackle the metals that carve the stone.

Amused by receptacles that your distressed soul shears

You misguide bells that do not postpone the mass

To search of you.

Like a stone experiencing the carving wind at the highest summits

You refuse the depression of your body by the clouds

You refuse the partnership of the grave,

For a body chosen by night

Neighbored by countless armor

Teaching that love is tumultuous.

Fragile papers burning in a crushed age

Entrusting to an open head a bleeding past

You tell no one

You did not succeed

You did not die before death

You did not deceive your hands’ sins

You became a wandering flame,

Aggravating the throwing stones

A prophet calling the Goddess

Squandering his own praise

Frightened over there

Rebelling against your subjects here

You endured.

When crying

Water is stolen far from you

Appearing like a lake agonized by the carving of salt

It seeks your refuge

Paper

By paper

It falls off you.

It moans to letters of no sympathy 

By those not knowing the touch of plants,

By those not bound by the characteristics of fire.

Blame no one

Close the heart’s neck

And depart from the chest’s bouquet

That you may bare the warring air

And the warring earth

It will not allow you

It distances itself from you

They are over there in the sweetness of sleep

And you here with nightmarish headaches

They are over there in the forest of justice

And you here blamed for death

They ignore your knowledge of the line

They fear you are an edge that strikes their progress

They can not distance themselves, it will not allow you

Be willful with yourself.

And…

Your fingers compete with the whitener’s banner

With an assaulted blackness in the blindness of talent

You remember

That the ocean has a path similar to the lance

Perhaps

You should forget what you had prepared for them

The flowing blood

In a funeral procession that reaches dreadfully to the womb the size of a grave

But you

While my words tear the glove of patience

You will not forgive me

While you publicly apologize about a lament that cannot support the crime In this text.

Translated by: Mouna Schaheen

from ‘Malath al-Rouh’ (Refuge of the Soul),

Published by Dar al-Konooz al-Adabiyya, Beirut, 1999

A Youth I Did Not Know-A Mellowness I Cannot Remember

An indifferent Youth-An Unmementos maturity

I see myself in your eyes,

I see my weary feet pilfering the cold mud

My clothes hoarded in an atmosphere of worry

Distracted shadows that track my deception,

Complaining tears, thirsty from a cheek unguided by me.

I pity the miserable atmosphere without you.

The bracelets of gloom broken by pain

I trick the intentions of denial,

That is why I love you,

I love you…Like one who is enamored by a dumb stream,

A dumb water fall, towards you my feeble heart is exaggerated

Till it feels the unique storm,

Raging from a few kisses,

Sucked by the mediation of our souls.

In your embrace I know the loving choke of death.

The honeyed tears I profess fall like burning wax.

With your seething hands I attempt to blot-out my fire.

Never,

I cannot master the satirical signs of your love, nor examine its hidden goals.

When I inhale your raving departure and your difficult return,

I am oblivious of the impudent world that we so proudly snub,

I rely on your heart that is rooted in my recesses,

I love you like a spring that never wearies from its dizzyingly bewailing flow

Towards the baptismal lament of another enthusiastic stingy love.

When I see you,

I search, occupied by your presence, for dark ink

I acutely search for the fluctuating waters of the heart

I design your early disappearance,

I record your revered scent,

I sculpt your hastened possession me,

I string all the machinery of my life,

To lament you, sing you, or model your manliness,

Oh the daringness of fate, the guilt of my days,

The sainthood of my silence.

I have a house gathered by green trellises spreading the cloak of night,

Rose buds surrounded by teary waters,

An orphaned grass assisted against an unseen dryness,

Cactus fruits concealing thirst and bestowing abundance to shy thorns,

Baked brick that pave my dreamy path,

Blood colored flowers that sufficiently hide the pebbles,

Blinding sun flowers,

A river of pebbles and shattered baked brick support the violent corners,

A goddess guarding an impatiently ripened garden

Tempting it with her sainthood,

While slaughtering them one by one.

In front of her,

I bow to profound thirst,

I kneel to utmost forgiveness,

I bend my knees

And wait for your caresses.

An evening and yet another…

A night and yet another…

A day and yet another…

After unjustly opposing my silence

I disrobe your terminated progress,

And advance myself.

Before I love you,

I release my soul from a bundled future of un-pardoned weakness

I adjust my foggy past to a soothsayers uncaring knowledge,

I shut out today’s extensively unbearable patience.

And…

When you intone me with those piercing cat eyes

Like collapsing arteries I compellingly continue the slaughter of a vain victory

Until I contemplate the intent of your betrayal,

I am infatuated by your bright ivory lips that arrest a curing rain

I do not want your early end, I do not want to die without you,

Now my small grave does not tenderly beckon me, without you my death will be hastened.

When your curious step is eased toward my contented silence,

My heart overtakes everything that has not passed.

When I love you,

I am adorned with mirrors that see you,

I cherish my desolate reality

I oppose preserving the lilacs that advanced my cure of you.

Tell me: who are you?

That I may sever the remnants of deprived time and continue to indulge in the sweet poison

I am uncomfortable with the sugar that has presently occupied the cells of my body

I no longer posses the crazy yearning that suddenly ascended from the old heart

And enflamed me in the hallo of your magic.

I am humbled by you,

The leanness of strange steps and the distant road,

The drowning of the swimmer towards an enflamed sky,

The blind grave veiling a weary coffin,

Indulging in partitioned sand fearful of disappearance

To end with you,

Without me nothing represents you.

Your scent is like a jasmine fearing to seize its elevated space,

Your whisper is like the murmuring rain arranging the falling stars,

Your forehead’s touch is like the mount of an abundantly blooming plant,

Your comforting hands are like the weary spikes’ golden bloom,

Your eyes are like the daring squirrels’ vainly concealing their secret,

Your shirt is like the cursed sails before drowning in the scent of the air

Your footsteps are like a malicious pickax flirting with the errors of the soul.

I love you but I cannot describe the scent,

Of the dormant odd devotion of my abusive arms.

When I see you awed at your delayed death

I rush to you,

Guarding wings of moistened masks to protect your departure.

The air hums like a bee tricked by the easing wind

Forsaken by the veiling drapes and its content,

Treated by the rose buds’ delicious pollen

Till a timely nausea,

Not a drop of honey

Was delivered from you.

I love you,

I bite my fingers when I recall a name that paints your eminent departure,

Whenever I remember you coming towards me, to an indifferent youth, to an un-mementoes maturity,

To endure the hard coldness of a grave, to the choking approach of confirmation.

I love how you exaggerate the passion that flows from me,

The divine duration of clouds that mimic my flow,

Always ridiculing my body’s oasis,

Always incriminating the my peaceful soul.

I hunger for

The occasionally radiating union of breath,

That unconsciously penetrates the depth of absence.

I love your trembling eyes,

Whenever your eyelids slip into stares of hidden yearning

A tremor that ignores everyone

Like a skillful knight slaughtering its reproofing prey.

The night alone

Our bashful absolver,

Protecting our beautiful isolation,

Proud of our past time,

Our warring speared hearts,

Shepherd a courageous attack-

Alone,

Capable of unleashing positive ink.

I love you as if I do not love

I live you as if I do not live

As my heart-now-labors with me:

My grave is not roused before your privation,

It will not grasp my splintered soul from the toughened bones before your lead,

Will not leave me to sleep alone,

Your vision pinned behind the eyelids’ darkness bestowing you:

All this,

Should I die before I live you.

That is why

He gratified me…and occupied the remainder

Of my life.

Written by: Fawzeya Al Sendi

Translated by: Mouna Schaheen