Tanka# 216

As I touch you
a silence enters my heart
and I become still
like a garden
in the light of dawn

I Write to You

I write to you
the way a bird
feels the wind
gliding under his wings,
the way the fire crackles
with passionate heat
to consume ever wildly,
the way a root
with infinite patience
descends into the dark;
I write to you
the way the rain
kisses the earth
after a long summer,
the way a monk
prays to God
in the solitude of his cell;
I write to you the way
wine ferments in darkness
and wheat grows gold
in the summer sun,
the way dawn fills the heart
with the still clarity of its light.
I write to you because I love you
and you have turned my life
into a journey of love.

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Writing as Worship

I spill my soul
into the poem
and it takes the shape
of her body,
shines with the light
of her face.

My poem is a journey
winding amid the white hills
of her grace.

I write as if to glimpse
beyond the veil that hides
her endless mystery.

I write because writing
is a form of worship.

The Ultimate Gift

In a city of constant noise
you were the silent beauty
which presence lifted me
into a higher realm of harmony,
who opened up higher worlds for me,
filled me up with passion
and gave me the ultimate gift,
the kiss of poetry.

Haiku # 725

From their treetops
the crows already see
the coming year

Last day of the year…
amid the bare trees I walk
on my solitary way

My lonely path
into the new year wanders
between bare trees

This, my life,
I animate with my heart
and live as poetry…

New year
old resolutions
this life of poetry

Wandering Thought # 244

A thinker is one who rides his solitude on lofty wings that take him up over and beyond mountains and cities, giving him eyes to see things those who dwell in society never dream of seeing. For that reason, when he speaks no one understands him, and when he comes back to society he must use the mask to be intelligible. If is both a curse and a blessing to go through the world in such a way, unseen, hidden.

The hyper sensitive will feel guilty for things they did not even do, they are always ripe for submission.

We can never be rid of the mystical impulse because science can never exhaust the mystery of life.

Without love even beauty becomes tiring and ultimately a burden.

This solitude, I cultivated it all my life so that it could, one day, be large enough to contain your presence.

Solitude, my sole companion, the only candle lighting the corners of my heart.

Poetry is the translation of the heat between our bodies, the gravity that pulls even stars from their orbit.

‏لا شعر يوفيها حقها فلغزها أعمق من كل شعر.

صوفيُّ القلبِ والهوى.

Kissing Her Neck

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.

Free Verse # 461 (one moment with you)

أجلُسُ وحيداً معكِ ولو كانَ بيننا ألفُ شخضٍ وشخص.

~

You pull me up when the whole world is pulling me down, and that is enough.

~

Rien ne réchauffe sans amour.

~

نحنُ دائماً مُغَلَفين بِأنفُسِنا.

~

قليل من الشعر ليروي عطش الليل.

~

Everyday
life flows a little more
into my veins
at the thought of touching you…
this life becomes fire
and has the name of poetry

~

In my dreams I wander
solitary as the moon,
only her eyes call me on and on
to hidden horizons,
to poetry, to wine,
to madness,
to a love so great
it tears open
the whole sky.

~

Though I come
with a laden heart,
one moment with you
empties me
of all my burdens.

~

Light touching her skin
A halo of poetry

~

When I touch you
even in thought
I am relieved
from that dreadful weight
pressing on my chest

~

Stripped bare
by this music;
a leaf
left trembling
in the passing wind.

~

Between his hands
her body swayed…
a violin aching
to weep
the sweetest music

~

The kiss he plucked from her mouth
a ripe fruit, red and bitter sweet,
filled with so much longing that
a tremor traveled between them
shaking the old fault lines and roots
and shaping them anew,
forged along the outlines
of their merging bodies.

Walking To You

Walking to you
I lose count of the distance
as miles laps
into endless miles,
I lose count of the time
as days swiftly turn
to months, to years,
everything becomes
background and echo
and only you remain,
you, love, the focal point
around which all time and space
spin and converge,
you, the expansion in my heart,
giving my life
freedom and meaning,
filling each moment
with peace and ecstasy,
teaching me to live this poetry…

Pierre Mhanna

When You Are Absent

The day goes by
and I long for you
in a thousand silent ways,
like the waves that keep rolling,
like the wind that keeps blowing,
like the silence of dawn
that aches to be full with your light,
like this poem
turning to a blazing fire
as it fails to reach its final line…

Free Verse # 460 (forgotten by the years)

Like the sun,
like a candle,
like fog,
like the waves,
like birdsongs,
like silence,
your face
as I hold it
inside my heart.

~

This poetry,
I labor to make beauty
hoping that one day
it will touch your eyes.

~

You and me
in a cabin
by a forest lake,
counting the leaves
as they fall,
forgotten by the years.

~

Perhaps I knew you
in another life,
for when I think of you
my spirit moves like water
and sunlight becomes
the face of my soul.

~

In my memory
I run through the fields
of my childhood
with the summer sun
warm on my face

~

Winter day…
in the distance
I hear your voice
rolling with the clouds

Free Verse # 459 (كل ضجيج العالم)

كل ضجيج العالم يتلاشى عندما أسمع صوتك.

~

هي قصيدةٌ مكتوبةٌ بلغة
أرغبُ أن أُمضي حياتي
وأنا أُترجمها

~

في هذا العالم المجنون
يبقى حُبُنا ملاذُنا الآمِن،
فيهِ نكون نوعاً آخَرَ من الجنون،
فيهِ نكون أنا أنا وأنتِ أنتِ.

~

أكتبُ
كأنّ قصيدتي تتلمَّس
دفءَ بَشَرَتِها

~

قُبلتَها
كلما مرّ لساني على شفتي،
أحسستُ بطعمها،
نبيذٌ أحمر، نارٌ، شعر،
كأن روحي قد ثملت
وهي تشرب من روحها.

Free Verse # 458 (watching her sleep)

This warmth between us
the knitted verse of poetry

~

Life happens while you wait
for a lover to ease the knot of fate

~

What am I? — Just a shadow passing in the rain.

~

If someone asked me
what proof have I got
that I really lived,
I’d only have my poetry.

~

Wounded by this longing,
I write poetry.

~

Water washes the skin but rain cleanses the soul.

~

Barefoot
she walks in my dreams
spilling moonlight
from her dark hair,
her breath
a candle whispering
the softest intimacy.

~

Watching her sleep,
to the candle’s light
he weaves his breath
and covers her gently.

Another Way of Being

As though life
is a fog,
a fading dream,
vanishing as we reach
to touch it,
images shivering in the water,
flowing away, already gone
when barely seen.

We live in the afterglow
of things that were,
eclipsed before being
fully embodied,
things filled with decay
even as they flourished,
things that are always leaving
only to lead us on and on
to a nowhere that exists
only in our hearts.

The heaviest love
is weightless and impotent.
The strongest attachments
are thin as the wind.

In this vast, endless
openness,
I pray, teach me
surrender,
let me become love. The only journey is the one within,
all else is illusory.

Haiku # 711

Cruising into old age,
reading books
and writing poetry.

~

With one foot in the grave
she sits smiling at me…
my mother

~

هذا المطر
في عتمةِ الليل عاشِقَين
يُقَبِلان بَعضَهُما

~

This rain…
in the dark night two lovers
passionately kissing

~

كقمرٍ في الماء
ترتَجِف
وأنا أُقَبِلُها

Love Desired

The passing years
knitted our lives
closer and closer
until we became
woven together
into a single fabric,
our beings emitting
a deeply harmonious music
as they merged over and over
with ever increasing intensity,
enlarging our love,
this world between us,
this infinitely warm nest,
to fill the whole sky,
mirroring each other
ever so truthfully,
ever so nakedly,
in the still water of our silence,
our shared and beating heart.

عن الشعر والحب

أقرأ قصائدي القديمة
لأجد فتات النساء
اللواتي أحببتهنّ يوماً
.واللواتي اختفين في الحقول
قصائدي كلها قصيدة واحدة
مرسومة كالوشم
،على بشرة المرأة الوحيدة
.والتي تختصر في كيانها كل النساء
قصيدتي انشودة مطر
،في حقل جسدها
قمر عالق
.في شعرها الأسود

Longing for Your Touch

Long ago
I weaved you as a myth
in the secret center
of my own heart;
now, every little thing
returns me to you,
the moon in the window,
the burning candle,
the blue light at dawn,
and I always find myself
caught in the stillness
thinking of you,
longing for your touch.

Free Verse # 456 (this solitude)

Poetry,
my one faithful love,
the only one who keeps
watch over me
and waits
and waits
to touch my face
and fill my heart.

~

Not just the earth,
touched by autumn’s rain
even this longing
exudes poetry

~

The moon’s light dissolves
all memories
of past and future,
and ties everything
in a silent knot
that whispers: “now.”
Nothing exists
outside this moment,
nothing lives
outside your heart.

~

Je t’aime, il lui a dit,
chaque jour au lever du matin,
chaque jour au coucher du soleil.

أحبكِ، قالها لها،
كل يوم عند طلوع الضوء،
كل يوم عند مغيب الشمس.

~

In the end, logic is the death of man; it’s where the poetry in his soul goes to die.

~

For a poet, it is enough, in this world, to have a little corner in which to sit with a book, a desk and some paper, to read and write to the light of a candle, lit by the impassioned flame of longing.

~

There are many who preach hate in the name of love.

كثيرون هم من يبشرون بالحقد باسم الحب.

~

I value a heart by how much longing it is capable of holding.

~

My life – I measure it in moments of poetry.

~

This solitude – without it I would not recognize my face.

Haiku # 701

Autumn
one leaf then another
falls in the wind

الخريف
ورقة ثم أخرى
تقع في الريح

~

September
through the woods I take
the long way home

~

September
you’ll find my heart buried
in a pile of yellow leaves

~

I breathe her in
as though her skin
is the light of the moon

~

Autumn evening
my thoughts drifting
with the passing clouds

~

Deep in the forest
I find my heart still
like the air and leaves

~

Forever is just a word
between us
and the moon

~

الخريفُ يبدأ
برائحةِ الأرض أُعَطَّر
زوايا روحي

~

هو يحب النساء اللواتي
يعرفن كيف يتحولن إلى شعر
بين يديه