Translated from the Arabic by Abbas El Sheikh
Edited by Mark Pirie
Say whatever you want to say
And let me say whatever I want to say!
The directions are hiding behind their hallucinations
The exiles lock their doors in front of the Euphrates
Say whatever you want to say
And let me say whatever I want to say!
My days are licking my days
And he who goes too far without his greenery is the myrtle
You light your illusions with madness
Coughing
mistakes
and love
And the regret knocks at your door
Why, then, should you open it?
Is it to be blessed with certitude?
Don’t you know that doubtfulness
Is an ink that spills over your age?
Your screaming is just in vain
In a dawn with aging lights
And what is in your right hand
Is only what is in your right hand
Say whatever you want to say
And let me say whatever I want to say!
I am a thirst of anxiety
Pillowed by longing
The nightmare takes its refuge in me
Just as destruction seeks its protection in me
My paths are pale
And my morning is threatened with nothingness
The moss is growing on its banks
And the alienation too
I trade the war for exile
And Babylon does not console me
I am besieged with seas
While the Tigris is submerged in thirst
I dip the lanterns in my palm
To give the stars their glitter
I ask the wind
To make a holy circle around my door
I embroider my pain with murmurings
And mend my defeats with happiness
And the happiness flees disgusted
Its wailing staining the walls and beds
I hail the season of my pain
And permit my foolishness to light the candles of Diaspora
The seas enter my hermitage
I am a pall for them with my windows
I lead the skeletons of my desolation
Which have become addicted to me
And my widowed questions
Autumn is pillowing my memory
And the bells are plentiful with the gift of elegies
I lament my days
And decorate their headstone with wailing
I wet the resonance of the incandescence in gold
And rub the yearning off the silver of waiting
No one is at the window
Praise your exile
And say: Is there any shyness in the aquamarine?
I lament my days
And light their headstone
With incense and myrtle
I recite in the band of the forgotten
Your memory forever
I read the sighs of the agate in its tinkles
And the turquoise
And on the verges of its losses
It lights its loneliness by questions
From my fingers the destruction is pouring
And I am leaning on it
Edited by Mark Pirie
Say whatever you want to say
And let me say whatever I want to say!
The directions are hiding behind their hallucinations
The exiles lock their doors in front of the Euphrates
Say whatever you want to say
And let me say whatever I want to say!
My days are licking my days
And he who goes too far without his greenery is the myrtle
You light your illusions with madness
Coughing
mistakes
and love
And the regret knocks at your door
Why, then, should you open it?
Is it to be blessed with certitude?
Don’t you know that doubtfulness
Is an ink that spills over your age?
Your screaming is just in vain
In a dawn with aging lights
And what is in your right hand
Is only what is in your right hand
Say whatever you want to say
And let me say whatever I want to say!
I am a thirst of anxiety
Pillowed by longing
The nightmare takes its refuge in me
Just as destruction seeks its protection in me
My paths are pale
And my morning is threatened with nothingness
The moss is growing on its banks
And the alienation too
I trade the war for exile
And Babylon does not console me
I am besieged with seas
While the Tigris is submerged in thirst
I dip the lanterns in my palm
To give the stars their glitter
I ask the wind
To make a holy circle around my door
I embroider my pain with murmurings
And mend my defeats with happiness
And the happiness flees disgusted
Its wailing staining the walls and beds
I hail the season of my pain
And permit my foolishness to light the candles of Diaspora
The seas enter my hermitage
I am a pall for them with my windows
I lead the skeletons of my desolation
Which have become addicted to me
And my widowed questions
Autumn is pillowing my memory
And the bells are plentiful with the gift of elegies
I lament my days
And decorate their headstone with wailing
I wet the resonance of the incandescence in gold
And rub the yearning off the silver of waiting
No one is at the window
Praise your exile
And say: Is there any shyness in the aquamarine?
I lament my days
And light their headstone
With incense and myrtle
I recite in the band of the forgotten
Your memory forever
I read the sighs of the agate in its tinkles
And the turquoise
And on the verges of its losses
It lights its loneliness by questions
From my fingers the destruction is pouring
And I am leaning on it
