Tag: Poetry

Free Verse # 453 (a small poem)

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment

Without them knowing
all the poets and painters
borrow from your beauty
to write and paint

~

Night falls
In the darkness
I feel myself being lowered
into a place of light

~

I begin every day with a small poem, and that is the little sun I plant inside my heart to accompany me throughout the day, that is my little prayer, my conversation with God.

I began by seeing her with my eyes, then I saw her with my heart.

It is the kindness that I love most in a face.

My woman has a body made of poems; I unravel her by delving into the waters of her mystery.

~

أكتب
كأنني امرر أصابعي ببطئ
فوق تعاريج بشرتك،
كأنني أتنشق رائحة شعرك
في صباحٍ خريفي.

~

When I am alone and silent
I find your face floating
to the surface of my heart
like a gentle wave of light

~

Though I’ve only known it
through the grace of poetry
your touch has pronounced
a holy utterance in me
turning my heart into a chapel
and a place of worship
filled with the fire of your love

These Poems

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment

These poems, I write them
so I would not forget
how you taste like,
how you smell,
how simply seeing you
fills my heart with light.

These poems are doors
I keep going through,
doors opening to rooms
filled with endless skies,
rooms where you have just left
as I walked in
leaving only your scent
and a letter or two.

These poems remind me
of the stain of your lipstick
on the wine glass from that night
that we laughed and shared our silence
and looked into each other’s eyes
and knew.

These poems are my heartbeats
caught in a capsule
and carried by the waves
always towards you,
but you are the sea
and you are the waves
and the shore beyond is you.

These poems always say
one and the same thing,
“there is no place left in me
for being and non-being,
I am all-being, in you.”

These poems always say the same thing
though each time
a little stronger and more deeply,
these poems say, “I love you.”

Haiku # 693

Pierre Mhanna1 Comment

بنيتُ لكِ في قلبي
كنيسةً صغيرة
ملأى باسمِكِ

~

In my heart
I built a small chapel
filled with your name

~

Her deep eyes
a perfect day
to fall in love

~

ما أحبَّ الرجلُ امرأةً إلا ولمسَ الشعرُ قلبهُ.

~

أنظرُ في عينيها
ثمَ أقبلها  واحدةً واحدة
أزهارُ بشَرتِها

Landscape

Pierre Mhanna4 Comments

As I hold my pen
her skin under my fingers
stretches into a landscape,
each word I write
spins a little vortex,
a turning Sufi, a small flower,
all spreading across her skin,
spreading like a fire,
dripping into her soul
and coursing deep down,
filling her with more love
than she can understand,
with unbearable gentleness
opening her wide,
opening her to God,
opening her to the sky.

One by one I kiss
the flowers of her skin,
then look into her eyes.

Haiku # 692

Pierre Mhanna5 Comments

In their eyes the stories
we’ve long forgotten –
animals in the wild

~

حتى بعد أن تستحم
تجد رائحتهُ
على بشرتها

~

Mon cœur
à chaque moment du jour
s’envole vers toi

~

وحيداً في الليل
لم يُبقِ الشعر مني
الا قلباً يرتجف

~

If I could choose
one place to touch you
it would be your heart

~

لو كان ليَ أن أختار
أن ألمُسَكِ في مكانٍ واحد
لاخترتُ قلبكِ

~

I do not write for readers; I do not write for the pleasure of writing; I write so I would not forget; I write to remember.

This Conversation

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment

We do not know each other
yet the poem
has always connected us;
in a world of change
this poetry ebbing and flowing
between our hearts
is the only constant,
carrying secret messages
between our souls.

You and me
we’ve always had this conversation,
wordless and mystical,
formless and flowing with pure essence;
without beginning or end
we’ve always been wrapped
around each other,
and this pain that wounds our souls
is the evidence of the place
where we enter each other.

Now, in silence,
I send you this word
to travel on the wind
and find your lips.

Free Verse # 452 (the road to the world)

Pierre Mhanna1 Comment

Sensibilisé par la poésie l’être aime profondément, avec passion et en totalité.

~

I do not write
I only feel my heart quiver
as I touch your face

~

In my mother’s hands
there’s always a seed
growing roots and leaves;
my mother’s hands are always green.

~

I woke up today
to find myself aging,
and you still
a voice echoing
in the distance,
somewhere far away.

~

Poetry is the heir of the mystical essence of religion.

~

The road to the world has always seemed to me to lead through a deep wood.

~

The poem gives me eyes to look at the world beyond my own death.

~

ضاعت بنا السبل
فانتهينا عاشقين
كلٌّ في بلد
 نكتبُ الشعرَ ليلاً
ونحنُ ننظرُ إلى النجوم
علّنا نجدُ فيها شيئاً
من بريقِ الأملِ

Tanka # 210

Pierre Mhanna1 Comment

She didn’t feel
the frost on her skin
until it melted
under the warmth
of his fingertips

~

مشّطتُ شعرها على مهل
وقبّلت الندى على كتفيها
ثم جلست بينما استلقت هيَ
وأمسكتُ القلم وسال الشعر
حبرا على بشرتها

~

Things break,
people die,
friends and lovers
go into the night
and return no more.

Adam and Eva

Pierre Mhanna1 Comment

Like wine in a cellar
this art of touching her
is something that has brewed
for a lifetime within me;
now and then it comes out
as poetry,
now and then
when it cannot be contained
and its flashes
flood through my veins
and its wave carries me
to the wood where we always met
in the deepest recesses of my memory.

I remember to come back
to the future where we are
and I complete the circle
as I write to you know
this love that is within me.

Haiku # 689

Pierre Mhanna4 Comments

The rain is falling…
in silence we sit
listening to the rain

~

كالتائهِ في الليل
بين الكلماتِ أتبع الضو
 الات من بعيد

~

Winter evening –
in my heart the slow burn
old memories…

~

  • February 02, 2021 | Batroun, Lebanon

Everyone have left
the road of my life
deepens into the sunset

I lost my sister to cancer on February 03, 2015. This week the doctor told me that my mother’s cancer is terminal, and that her life expectancy is a few months at best.

Wandering Thought # 102

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment

What I find deeply disconcerting about science is its will to reduce everything it touches into the realm of knowledge — i.e. utilitarian — thus dispelling existence of every shade of mystery. In such an atmosphere that is deeply antagonistic to poetry I find myself suffocating and unable to tolerate life. The good news is that this endeavour of science is futile, in that it is impossible to reduce everything into the realm of knowledge; the unknown remains, and the shade of mystery cannot be dispelled; poetry cannot be vanquished. The bad news is that science may well destroy life and the world before coming to this conclusion and admitting its childish aspirations. The link between poetry, mystery, and ecology is unmistakable. It is what we hope will one day bring science to its senses, making it aware of its own limitations. Hopefully that day won’t be too long in the future.