Three Syrian Exile Poems
Hunger Strike
In the last watch
of blood and memories,
in the last neighing
of empty stomachs,
the human tree announces
its prophecy
overflowing with our bright stature.
Spectrums of silence and speech
1
Poetry isn't bound by words alone,
it might be expressed by
silence, love, roses
rain, sea, storm
stars, shadows, and forests.
We each have our own verses,
while nature pens her own.
2
Within silence,
something eludes our grasp
neither in your native tongue
nor in your learned languages,
let alone the gypsies,
startled by the weight of translations.
3
Silence has but one alphabet,
while speech
is steeped in its own dividedness.
O poet, sinful boat,
forsake the safe chatter of the shores
for the deep waters that yield to your delinquencies.
4
Speak once
and stay silent twice
is it a blind coincidence
that you are endowed with
one mouth and two ears?
You’re heartless if you fail to realize that
you are heartless.
5
Go
the ingredients failed to lead you to safety,
and insight reveals only what eludes your sight.
Whoever does not praise silence
is surely condemned by their own speech.
6
There is a woman in every tree,
and within every woman lies a seed of divinity.
So why do you choose to ally
with demons?
I urge you to speak a little
and remain silent as long as you can.
Your self may never forgive you.
7
Forever accused of being the opposite of who you are,
and I doubt you’ll be too unhappy about it.
Didn’t the state train you
in what that woman tried
to teach you?
Your first silence was successful,
as was your second.
What an ally silence makes!
8
The stockrooms of your poetry
are filled with burning words,
burning questions
that lead to heart-scorching answers.
Yet I advised you, and I’ll say it again:
embrace that sweet silence
when speech is futile.
9
Your silence
upset the executioner
more than your words.
With just a bit more silence,
the death of the executioner becomes a near reality.
10
He drinks at times,
submerged in silence.
He drinks again,
transforming into a radio.
There must be a predetermined level of alcohol
for that kind of silence,
and another for the urge to speak.
11
Speech is not crafted from silver,
and silence in the face of cowardice is not gold,
but rather a reflection of cowardice itself.
12
Our Arabic alphabet
is made of twenty-eight burns,
or an intricately woven curse.
Oh God, how easily we can destroy it,
like others do.
All languages
can bear the mark of a terrorist,
but the true disaster
lies in the presence of silent terrorism
or semi-silent.
What, then, do we call those pistols
equipped with silencers?
13
It’s the utmost torture
to be silent
when you should speak,
or to speak
when you should remain silent.
Sometimes, it’s like
the right amount of salt in food,
and other times,
it resembles dynamite.
14
In the beginning, was it the word?
Sons of blood and nothingness
in the beginning, why could it not
have been just silence?
15
Silence carries
the whispers of Stockholm’s forests and lakes,
while speech bears
the whips of dictators’ orators,
whose Imams bless
the follies of small tyrants,
all to draw nearer to the head tyrant.
16
I know silence very well,
just as I know speech,
but sometimes,
I need something more.
17
We can count what we write or read
word by word,
letter by letter,
like we count roses and stabbings.
But silence
it has neither sunrise nor sunset
no beginning, no end.
No certainties or speculations.
Silence may not be enough,
but it is self-sufficient.
18
There is a correlation
between night and silence,
just as there is between day and speech.
However, rhetoric
is the elixir that bridges the two.
19
Silence
is older than language.
Silence
is the rain from the marriage of lightning and clouds.
Silence
is the aim of wisdom,
while speech
is the pursuit of the ruler.
20
No silence without speech,
and no speech without silence,
but the whips
can shatter the equation.
21
Speech has
the voracity of light and noise,
while silence possesses
the depth of shadows and echoes.
Choose, for your circumstances,
how much you want
of weddings and funerals
in each moment.
22
When you discover
what’s more valuable than silence,
then it is okay to speak.
The Tear
It’s possible for a tear
to become a stone,
and then a rose.
Tell them!
You and I are witnesses,
since our long cry.
Translations from the Arabic
