I gave up love
being satisfied with the quiet of shadows
And memories.

Time was past, lost,
moments exploded
by the rain of bombs.

At nightfall
I don’t brush my dreams any more.
At nightfall
I don’t care for the wandering sun any more.

At nightfall
I leave the frightened moon in the sky
to shelter under the ground.

I am neither a woman nor a poet any more.

Night by night
more and more,
I feel real.

Like the bloody sound of alarms,
Like the roaring anti-aircraft rounds,
Like the falling bombs and rockets,
which turn the ruins and ashes
into eternal reality;
I feel night by night more real
and old,

so old and real that in the mirror
I see nothing anymore
but an aisle of empty chairs.

Oh, isn’t it enough?

What does a man need
more than a loaf of bread,
a quiet night
and an armful of bleak love,
for giving up and being satisfied
with the quiet of shadows
and memories?

THIRSTY DEPARTURE
For : Safa

Cool water
blue colour
loitering heat;

Thus and so
I prowl in the thought of you
just as a leaf
in the spirit of a tree
or Fall .

The night stone
rolls away
in the mood of crying,
and the tipsy wings of gayflies
may be the most beautiful memory
In leaflessness.

Without you
Good and Grief even
Is Evil itself.

You know?
I think of that letter
I have to write to you
and to all the world ;
I know what to write
but deeply disheartened I am.

Understanding only the seashore’s word:
“keeping aside”
from the bottom of heart
I share wandering
with both sides of all roads

I, I WHO HAVE NOTHING

Tonight, without you
this room is like that room
in that hospital
where on the bed
there was a white sheet
like a cloud, broad;
under it, my small bird
with wounded wings
whom nurses mistook
for the corpse of a small boy,
his hands
gone with the bombs.

This is why
they took him to the mortuary
and I didn't see him again.

Do you remember that old song:
I , I who have no one
I , I who have nothing?

when I found you ,
you, who were a stray dreamer
among the tic tack followers;

when I found you
you, who were the act of verse
among the actors of phrases ;

I sang my song :
I , I who have my shadow ,
I , I who have my shadow-mate

But tonight ,without you
I have nothing but my memories
of my little bird
who exchanged his mother with the bombs
of love, who exchanged his nest with the wind…

I WISH

I wish I could freeze in the winter
like the water in the small holes on the ground
so the people could see, before their feet,
the wrinkles on my soul
and the fractures on my broken heart

I wish that, at times,
I could quake like the earth
and all my pillars would collapse
so the people could believe
the sorrows that tremble my heart

I wish that I could rise
every morning, like the sun,
and shine on the snow and ice
so the people could never forget to love.

TELL ME SOMETHING!

Where do I depart for
that I must go
without my glasses
without my dresses
without my books
without my music tapes
without my rough copies of poems
And even without your hand in min
Where do I depart for
that my only souvenir has to be
my endless loneliness
And my carrion flesh and skin and bones
And my dried blood which cries:
O love !
It was for finding a way to your heart
that all my life
I climbed the high mountains of words
and wandered over the whiteness of paper
lLike mirageless deserts.

Where do I depart for
that I must shut my eyes
to bid farewell to my spirit
and prepare to fly over the horrible abyss
that opens mouth
under my feet ?

THE SECOND CUP
Edited by: Sam Hamill

At midnight,
my husband came into my room.
He saw the two cups of coffee
and the open book on the desk.
He checked the radiator
to see whether it was warm.

Before leaving, he bent
to kiss my forehead
as gently as a father
when kissing his sleeping daughter.
He knows everything—
the second cup
is for the soul of the poet
whom I have never seen but love,
and reading his poems
I feel his hands caress my heart.

In the kingdom of dreams,
I am neither wife nor mother;
I am myself, my true self.

And this—the radiator in my room
is impossible to understand
while feeling my husband’s hands
to see whether it was warm.

Transformation

I remember
my former life
as a strange vision

of the shadows of a man and a woman
on the cold wall of a dark room
like a flaming fire .

I remember
the savage waves of a flood
attacking the shadows
to distinguish the flaming fire .

I remember
forgetting everything

even our poetry books
and bicycles
and our children.

No one believes my vision
even the flaming fire
alive in the heart of our shadows;

Only the savage waves of that flood
are survived from my former life
to remember me as a strange vision

of a lonely woman
without her shadow-mate
like the smoke of a dead fire .

POETRY AND POLITICS
Translated by : Mahmood Hossein Ashighlar

Let’s begin the dialogue among civilizations
With silence! With deep silence
so we can hear

all the bombs and the bullets bang
lost in them , crying of the Palestinian refugees,
the African children,and slum dwellers all over the world .

As long as politicians put smile on
and shake hands on cameras
I feel threatened!

As long as such big tables are arranged in elaborated palaces,
decorated with colorful tablecloths,a loudspeaker in front of each chair,
I feel threatened!

As along as telephones find wings,
and fly into pockets off the tables
I feel threatened!

Flowers have no tables for negotiations
Birds know not how to shake hands, or even how to put a smile on
They only know how to live, to flourish, to fly, and just be birds.

No garden ever needs several story shopping malls either,
The sky of the seas is abundant with the songs of birds
And in no island one can hear th annoying sound of car alarms

Let’s begin the dialogue among nations with poetry!
Poetry is dialogue among hearts,
best way to make connections with God.

it is pure innocent moments of silence
that flourishes, blooms and finds branches and leaves.
Let’s begin the dialogue among civilizations with silence!