Barada, oh father of all rivers

O’ dagger’s journey… in my fleshand knife’s plunge…sink me further my lady…the sea calls meadd to me more death …perhaps as death slays me… I’m revivedyour body is my map…the world’s map no longer concerns me…I am the oldest capital of sadness…and my wound a Pharaonic engravingmy pain…. extends like an oil patchfrom Beirut… to…

The old books are dead.Our speech with holes like worn-out shoes is dead.Dead is the mind that led to defeat.2Our poetry has gone sour.Women’s hair, nights, curtains and sofasHave gone sour.Everything has gone sour.3My grieved country,In a flashYou changed me from a poet who wrote love poemsTo a poet who writes with a knife4What we…

Or if you are my lover…Help me…so I can be healed of you…If I knew….that the ocean is very deep…I would not have swam…If I knew…how I would end,I would not have beganI desire you…so teach me not to desireteach me…how to cut the roots of your love from the depthsteach me…how tears may die…

And the kiss more important than the lips.My letters to youAre greater and more important than both of us.They are the only documentsWhere people will discoverYour beautyAnd my madness.Translated by B. Frangieh And C. BrownSubmitted by Noele Aabye

I knelt until the floor creakedI asked about Mohammed and ChristOh Jerusalem, the fragrance of prophetsThe shortest path between earth and skyOh Jerusalem, the citadel of lawsA beautiful child with fingers charredand downcast eyesYou are the shady oasis passed by the ProphetYour streets are melancholyYour minarets are mourningYou, the young maiden dressed in blackWho rings…

I possess the earth and everything on itand ride into the sun upon my horse.When I loveI become liquid lightinvisible to the eyeand the poems in my notebooksbecome fields of mimosa and poppy.When I lovethe water gushes from my fingersgrass grows on my tonguewhen I loveI become time outside all time.When I love a womanall…