Can it be that we nourish
one of the Fates in our bosoms?
Clotho, sewing our lives
with a bony little foot
on a borrowed sewing machine,
and our fates will be like hers,
and our hems crooked forever?
long black hair
there was a woman
at the café
who kept brushing
her long black hair
tossing it back
over her shoulder
the way I’ve see
you do
sitting in your house shirt
in our bedroom
the same motion
before you would blow
a kiss
my way
suddenly
I am lost
in memories
of you
a slight reworking under different circumstances but the motion, the memory the same
I wrote the name of the one I loved by Nizar Kabbani
I wrote the name of the one I loved
On the wind.
I wrote the name of the one I loved
On the water.
But the wind is a bad listener,
The water does not remember names.
translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown
a long time in passing
a little black dress
the wiff of perfume
in the air
as she passes
and suddenly
there you are
front and center
in my memory
and this night
will be a long time
in passing
continued from I want to write different words for you by Nizar Kabbani
Take all the books
That I read in my childhood,
Take all my school notebooks,
Take the chalk
The pens,
And the blackboards,
But teach me a new word
To hang like an earring
On my lover’s ear.
I want new fingers
To write in a new way,
Like high masts of ships,
Long like a giraffe’s neck
So I can tailor for my beloved
A garment of poetry.
I want to make you a unique alphabet.
In it I want
The rhythm of the rain,
The dust of the moon,
The sadness of the grey clouds,
The pain of the fallen willow leaves
Under the wheels of autumn.
translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown
When I travel into your eyes by Nizar Kabbani
When I travel into your eyes
I ride a magic carpet
Lifted by violet and rose clouds
Rotating like the earth
In your eyes.
translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown
following a line from Wang An-shih: the distances between
the distances between
and arms too old
to flap away
over mountains
over rivers
that ocean
those seas
how oh how
to cross
those distances between
