Free Verse # 10

Lovers approach
and, as if stroked by a secret fire,
flowers start dancing
rolling out a chaos of colours
in carpets upon the garden’s floor
and spilling fragrant breaths
in lucid flame-tongues warming up the air
where the lovemaking shall feast and spread
ecstasy in a white pillar
uniting earth and heaven,
obliterating both.

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In Night’s Womb

The locks of your hair
In my hand I knit
A moon around your neck

Squeeze your femininity
Grape by grape
In my glass of wine

Devour your body
Like fiery bread
Out of the furnace of passion

And as a spring moon
In your eyes I rise to fullness
Pouring my song
Of jasmine breaths
Upon your pure cheeks

Translated from here.

In the Sky of Love

Like a loaf of bread
baked in the maturity of my passion
I broke the autumn moon
over the body of my beloved
and amid her hills I scattered its wine,
white whispers caressing the cheeks of her flowers
and dewed kisses embracing the sanctity of her earth.

At midnight, in the depth of silence
water soaked into her soil
sinking into the wells behind her eyelids
as light from her womb flowed,
a love-song saturating her insides
and rising to be born on her lips,
an autumn moon.

This poem translated.

في سماء الحب

كرغيف خبزٍ خارجاً من نضج عشقي
كسرت قمر الخريف فوق جسد حبيبتي
وبين طهر هضابها نثرت نبيذه
همس أبيض مداعبا وجنات أزهارها
وقبلٌ كالندى معانقة قدس أرضها

مع انتصاف الليل وفي عمق السكون
عشق التراب المياه الى ما وراء الجفون
واذ بالضوء من رحمها يفيض
أغنية حبٍ متغلغلةً في أحشاءها
لتولد من على شفتيها، قمر الخريف

Free Verse # 9

There is an absence
that shoots through our chest
like a star through the night sky,
piercing through our heart
as its open wound churns
a river of fire and blood
covering the face of night
where with shivering fingers
and at the edge of dream –
we paint and write…

Free Verse # 8

Imbibing the light of love
My heart grew warm,
Scintillated, and blazed a fire
Scattering poem-seeds
Into the world’s mad fields,
Nurturing them into gardens
Of passionate flowers.

Free Verse # 7

Through gates of anguish
My soul, an arrow shooting,
Aiming for the stars.

Ablution

Overfull with the wine of love
You lifted the chalice to my lips
And with eyes exuding faith and trust
You bid me to drink, and be whole in love.

My hands clasping yours
And with eyes half-closed
The liquid poured into my mouth
Down to the last drop
As suddenly a pain and fire
Burst my heart open and surged
In waves of ache and sorrow
Through the fields of my body
Pushing me out, away from you
And far away into foreign lands
Where pain festered within like gray clouds
Whipping me with lightning
But never with rain to sooth
And wash clean my burning wounds.

Beloved, your love-potion was a poison
That seeped down to my sacred roots and ground
Cracking up my soil and merging with the water
At the very source of my beat of heart and life.

Years passed.
I forgot you, I forgot my name,
And thinking myself lost to all love and hope
I wandered aimless budding thorns for flowers
And cursing a lot destined to toil
With neither fruit nor intimate touch.

But the hour came when through my darkest clouds
Your eyes pierced like shafts of light
And, washing upon my face in endless waves,
My heart filled with a thankful song
That clamoured like birds in the tavern of dusk.

Poison was the love I could not bear,
Its pain was the weight I could not lift or stand,
Sorrow was the love I could yet be.

It crushed and killed me
And yet it was I who wanted and welcomed it
Though I did not know it then,
Though I could not fathom the preciousness of your gift
And how blessed I am, Beloved.

Dawn came, and with it
A yellow bird flew to the branch
Where my very first flower bloomed
And poured longing into a song
That flowed through my heart
Like a river of ecstasy and joy.

My tears fell in streams kissing
And washing your hands,
As my every wound now became a smiling mouth
And a garden where flowers bloomed.

Morning Ritual

Each dawn
Flying down from a silent sky
The yellow bird enters my ribs
Billowing my breath with his wings
And from branch to branch he flutters
To reach my heart
And pierce it with his yellow beak
Releasing fire in a stream
That rises with the exalted
Songs of morning
To caress,
Like a most gentle prayer,
The face of my Beloved
Shining upon
Heaven’s face.

Cosmogony of One

With supple fingers
My Beloved stringed
Love’s infinite droplets
Into crescent moons,
Bracelets for my arms
And a necklace
Around my neck
Binding my roots
Stems and leaves
To Her sky and womb.

Midnight,
Perched amid the stars,
Like winds of homecoming
Her breath billowed inside of me
While the milk of Her breasts
Through my mouth and veins gushed
Thick and warm and lush;
The waxing moons grew sharp
Biting into my skin and sinking,
Reverberating ecstasy in waves
Through the sea of stars,
Concentric ripples all beating
In Her womb and heart.

Full moons,
Head and hands lost
As downward I poured
In infinite droplets
Sinking in the earth
To nourish eager mouths
And roots and beating hearts
And grow –
Fruits in the belly of love,
Whispers upon the merging lips of lovers,
And crescent moons stringed
By my Beloved
To adorn the hands and neck
Of love.

Light of my Eyes

My beloved is the light
living in my eyes.
Open, and out she flows
painting the world into life
while flooding my eyes with
its myriads tastes and colours.
Closed, and down she pours
enlivening my visions and dreams,
a sickle of light
honing the brightness of my flame.

حلم

واسعة الأرض يا قلبي
من يرتحل عن بيته لا يعود
تستهويه رائحة حلم قديم
أضحى فريسة الوقت والوجود
كرائحة امرأة لامست فيه ذلك المجهول
فاختلجت في ذاكرته وفاضت
متغلغلة في أعمق أعماقه
آه، حلم الطفولة يعود

ولكن يا قلبي
أي سبيل نسلك الآن
وطريق العودة مقطوع
أنكتفي برثاء الحلم
وما كان يمكن أن نكون
كشاعر شاهد كالمفجوع
قصيدته تهوي في بحر السكون
فارتدى الدجى معطفا
والتحف بدمع الصمت المجنون

انبض يا قلبي الآن
انعش احشائي بدفئك الحنون
طال بنا ليل فيه انعدم
دفء الحبيبة ونبيذ الكروم

أغمض عيناي
لأرى نفسي تسير كرم العنب والزيتون
ها الشمس تداعب وجها تعب
شفتان تبتسمان، وأنامل تكتب
تخط نفسها على صفحات بيضاء
تطويها الأيام، لتضحي صفراء
اكبر وأتجعد وأعود وأقرأ
آه من الحلم القديم
رائحة الزهر والياسمين

في رحم الليل

خصل شعرك
في يدي أعقدها
قمراً حول عنقك

عاصراً انوثتك
عنبة عنبة
نبيذ في كأسي

ملتهماً جسدك
كخبز ملتهب
في أتون العشق

وكقمر الربيع
في عينيك أكتمل
ساكباً أغنيتي
همس ياسمين
على طهر خديك

Haiku # 27

Head on pillow and
A million voices whisper,
Dreams budding like stars.

~

From the lake of stars
Her face, a shimmer of dreams
Drowning in my eyes.

حب واحد

كتموج الريح في سنابل القمح
تنساب يدي فوق بحر وجهك
واذا بالدمع والبسمات
موج أبيض يتكسر
على شواطىء عينيك

هناك حيث يسكن القمر والنجوم
وحيث يتفتح زهر الياسمين
أزرع قلبي قبلة قبلة
حبات نبيذ دافىء فوق طهر جفنيك
حبات قمح نحصدها سوية من رحمك
لنعجن بها خبز أيامنا
ونأكل، فم واحد وقلب واحد
ونشوة واحدة
وقود حب من وجه الشمس يشع
ومن لمساتنا

Haiku # 26

Listening to her voice
My shell of arrogance broke
Leaving me naked

Through the Thickening Night…

In the land of perpetual twilight
A flock of birds whirled in endless circles,
Their songs, sad wistful waves
Rushing to crash against the horizon’s walls.

Where have you been, old heart?
The house of life has missed your shout
And the roads which your feet once tread
Now bloom with flowers at your dreamer’s touch.

The maidens from whose gaze your eyes fled
Now call you back pouring mirth and wine,
Close and warm their white cheeks glisten
And bid your lover’s lips to drink and write.

Through the thickening night your passage unfurled
Dawn’s rays scattered like blue flowers,
In fields of light the flock of birds gathered,
Their songs exalted waves of birth.

Haiku # 25

Your halcyon eyes,
Dawn, a blue pool of silence
On my skin, weeping.

~

Lapping on my face,
Your breath, a cadence of waves
Stroking me, open…

Haiku # 24

In my cup of wine
Her face, a shower of stars
Falling to my eyes.

Free Verse # 6

Like dew to a flower,
my eyes on her skin weep,
teardrops soaking in her flavour and scent
and melting in my mouth
as I drink them back and offer,
to her lips a flower.