Like fresh morning dew
my kisses sink into her neck,
from her chin down
to the hollow above her chest,
going around to her collarbones,
then to her nape at the back
as I lift her dark hair,
falling slowly to the expanse
between her shoulder blades…
…my kisses circle her neck
like a Sufi turns
ecstatic and feverish,
lost in prayer
as with each turn
he falls deeper
lost in God.
من كل شيء
تعرّت
وارتدت ما حاكه لها
من نفسه
وضوء القمر
My eyes
opening them slowly
to my lover’s kiss –
No! It was just the roll
of distant thunder!
~
Her kiss
thunders in my head;
as it fades
it leaves my heart
drenched in warm rain.
Midnight’s fading moon
its light in my room
a dance of fireflies
~
Le noir de nuit
luit au touché
du blanc de sa peau
~
The nocturnal dark
gleams at the touch
of her white skin
The fragrance of her skin
diligently – I study it to learn
the meaning of spring
Bathed
in moonlight
her naked body
a landscape of fire
pierced by the red
of autumn leaves
Night falls,
her dark hair in rivulets
fills its lonesome corners;
the candle of her breath
ignites somewhere
inside the vast darkness,
casting a play of shadows
against the spinning walls;
a cloistered world,
an intimate world
of poetry and wine
and our lips
and our naked bodies
tangled and merging
somewhere deep inside.
بعد اللقاء
في منتصف الليل
أشمّها في شعري
وثيابي…
رائحة البخور
المحترق في فمها
~
الدخان في فمها
بخورٌ يناجي
معبد الاله
Like salt crystals in your hair
Breathing the vastness of the ocean,
Like snowflakes upon your cheeks
Melting to a teary, pure passion,
Like eyes of jasmine in your eyes
Bathing in scent divine all colours,
Like the moon upon your lips
Weaving a wall of light in eyes,
Like autumn’s red rivers from your palms
Streaming fire leaves in evening skies,
Like spirals of smoke from your mouth
Censing to silence a world unbound —
Your love, madness weaved within madness,
Your love, poetry’s red sun reciting from heights,
Your love, a listening eye piercing hearts to life,
Your love, an unequivocal desire to drown, to rise,
Your love, a deep forest where a single leaf falls,
Your love, a lake reflecting the deep face of heart.
كهمس الأوراق
خيال وجهها وهو يمرّ
بين حروف القصيدة،
تاركاً، في سماءها
خيوط فجرٍ أبيض كالماء
~
To write her name
in the form of a poem
and feel in it moving
all the swirling eddies
in the oceans of the world
~
Her dark hair
a rain of fire
flooded across my belly
and moving insatiably
to the rhythm of her head
My fingers in her hair,
her body over mine,
falling asleep
as the fire crackles
on a winter night.
L’amour…
cette courbe qui tend
vers l’infinie
~
Between me and you
a distance covered
by the shadow of poetry
~
Trempée dans ses cheveux
la lune s’attarde
à se lever
~
Do secret things to her…
leave your words stained
amid her thighs
~
More lucent still
than the fullness of the moon…
the pages of her skin
~
Plus luisants encore
que la pleine lune…
les pages de sa peau
Dans la pluie
qui mouille mes lèvres
je goutte ton nom
~
Dans mes mains
je les acquis,
tes cheveux tombant
comme la pluie
de la voute du ciel
~
Imprégnée de rosée
sa peau de fleur respirait
le blanc de la poésie
~
Dans le jardin,
sous le ciel de l’aube,
sa peau de fleur
imprégnée de rosée
respirait la poésie.
~
Laying in the garden
at the break of dawn,
the flower of her skin
soaking in dew
breathed poetry.
They become fire
the words as I ink them
in the sea of her skin
Words come to me…
the fingers of a man
like shy birds traveling
along the skin
of his newlywed
Her naked body
lying in my bed –
the whiteness of winter
pierced by the red
of autumn leaves
Terre natale…
dans sa peau à miel de lune
la fleur de la rosée
~
A la caresse de mon souffle
elle tremble dans sa peau
de miel et de rosée
Moon on the water,
and her, in its reflection,
fixing her hair.
From an evening on the shores of Batroun.
In this life
and the next
your breath and mine
woven into
a single nest
~
For gift
she offered me her back,
a page
on which to ink
the flowers of poetry.
If I touched you with my heart, would you be the poem I’ve been aching to write? – the poem that exhausts my life in a sea of mystery?
~
He touched her and her heart, weeping, was a violin that finally found its soul.
~
My poem and my heart are coextensive: the woman who touches one touches the other.
~
Mon poème et mon cœur sont coextensives: la femme qui touche l’un touchera l’autre.
~
We are all in the end unfinished stories.
~
Un jour, même après ma mort, un papillon anonyme trouvera la fleur secrète qui brule dans mon corps.
~
آخر الطرقات بين
قلبي وقلبها
وردة حمراء تذوي
وورقة خريف
هائمة في الريح
~
Clothed by his poem,
every word etched
with the ink of a fire
that burned for ages
on the altar of his heart.
~
Caressant sa peau
avec mon poème
la fleur entre ses jambes
s’en est ouverte
comme une coquille qui m’offrait
l’infini de la mer
Rooted in Love 