Free Verse # 449 (listening to the silence)

With my mouth
I lean down to where
the sun kissed her skin,
and I feel the warmth
caressing my lips,
fragrant, succulent,
the sun rays turned to a wine
filled with her essence,
and I drink slowly
as I feel it in my heart,
a love too big
for the earth and sky.

~

Around us
the world turned
like a mad vortex
as we kissed,
filled with noise yet still,
covered with endless veils
yet transparent
as we kissed
and kissed
until the end of the world.

~

I heard her words, but I listened to her silence

استمعت الى كلماتها، ولكن أنصتّ الى صمتها.

~

ان أصبحت شاعراً
فذلك لكي أتمكن، يوماً ما،
من قراءة المجرات والنجوم
وهي تدور في فلك بشرتها.

~

Like a vast kiss the rain fell
as we stood in the river
clasped against one another,
gazing into the distance
as the riverflow went on
disappearing into the fog;
we kissed, then closed our eyes,
listening to the silence
making us one
with the river, the fog
and the falling rain.

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Wandering Thought # 96

In a dictatorship or a totalitarian regime the election is only formal, and serves the purpose of giving popular legitimacy to the system in place without allowing any fundamental change to the policies and forces of governance. A people’s belief in the election would actually hinder any real change, and only preserve the status quo and power balance of the system. In Lebanon, any election will be ineffectual in bringing any real change, since the country is governed by an oligarchy of sects, and the actual power is concentrated not in the parliament and not in the cabinet of ministers but in around six sectarian men, with each having his own external alliances and his own internal agenda. The oligarchy is as powerful as the central government is weak and ineffectual. The current political system incubates corruption as a way to survive and to proliferate itself. The current political system recognizes no citizenship and no sovereign individuals, but only subjects who must be used as fuel for war among themselves. In Lebanon there are no left and right parties, but only a form of tribalism that calls itself a democracy. So long as people believe in the illusion and do not stand in solidarity with each other around a shared ideal, change will be impossible.

Letter, August 25, 2020

“For if you desire anything which is not in our power, you must be unfortunate,” says the philosopher Epictetus. Yet, a thousand times unfortunate for desiring you and not having you, than one time fortunate for not desiring you at all. I welcome the fate of your unrequited love, and bless it as a higher fate any other in which I have not known your love at all.

Free Verse # 448 (في سكون روحي)

ولكن يا حبيبتي
كل السنين التي أضعناها
وكل الأخطاء التي اقترفناها
لم تذهب سدىً
ما دمنا معاً، الآن،
في هذه اللحظة المقدسة
متشاركين هذا النفس
وكأس النبيذ
وضوء القمر
ككاهن يبارك الخبز والخمر
كصوفي يطوف حول الكعبة
في قلب الله.

~

A man, just by looking
into her eyes
will become a poet,
yet all the poetry in the world
will not help him
express what he feels
when he looks into her eyes.

 أصبح شاعراً
من نظرةٍ في عينيها،
ولكن كلُّ شعر العالم
لن يمكنَّه من أن يعبّر
عن ما يشعر به
عندما ينظر في عينيها.

~

لوْ كانَ للجَمالِ اسمٌ، لكانَ وجهها.

~

هذا الشِعر – رحيقُ الضَوء وهوَ يرتَدّ عَن بَشَرَتِها.

~

I loved her in the stillness of my soul.

أحببتها في سكون روحي.

~

I will write again
when I feel her move
inside my heart