Apr
2
2009
A Woman Walking Within Me
No one has read my coffee-cup
without divining you’re my love,
nor studied the lines of my palm
and not discerned four letters of your name,
everything can be denied
except the fragrance of the one we love,
everything can be concealed
except a woman’s footsteps moving within us,
everything can be debated
except your femininity.
What will become of [...]
1 comment | tags: arabic-literature, nizar-qabbani, photography, poetry | posted in Arabic, literature, photography, poetry
Mar
29
2009
Every Time I Kiss You
Every time I kiss you
After a long separation
I feel
I am putting a hurried love letter
In a red mailbox
. …Nizar Qabbani
Translated by B. Frangieh And C. Brown
no comments | tags: arabic-literature, nizar-qabbani, poetry | posted in Arabic, literature, photography, poetry
Mar
23
2009
My lover asks me:
“What is the difference between me and the sky?”
The difference, my love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.
…. Nizar Qabbani
2 comments | tags: arabic-literature, nizar-qabbani, photography, poetry | posted in Arabic, literature, photography, poetry
Feb
20
2009
I love You
I love you more than human heart can bear
More than a poet dreams or lover feels
You are the perfumed cloud from heaven sent
To rain upon me your enchanted dew;
I feel your heart, your veins flow into mine,
No gap to let the impure world creep in;
My heart confronts [...]
no comments | tags: arabic-literature, literature, Llyas-Abu-Shaaka, llyas-abu-shaka, photography, poetry | posted in Arabic, literature, photography, poetry
Feb
13
2009
Overture
Who can open the door
of the green river,
of the golden clouds,
of my heart?
…Zubur Dixon
Translated by P. A. Byrne and
Salma Khadra Jayyusi
Zubur Dixon, Iraqi poet born 1933. Largely self-taught, she draws on the strong poetic tradition of Iraq and reflects a suppressed emotionalism related to her position as a woman in [...]
no comments | tags: arabic-literature, poetry, Zubur-Dixon | posted in Arabic, literature, photography, poetry
Feb
8
2009
More Beautiful
And woman too is beautiful
and more beautiful still
is the imprint of her feet
across our papers
Nizar Qabbani
Translated by L. Jayyusi and W. S. Merwin
Images: Image 1 Sonia Chabas, Image 2 Victor Bezrukov
no comments | tags: arabic-literature, literature, nizar-qabbani, photography, poetry | posted in literature, photography, poetry
Feb
5
2009
And I Do Not Protest
Why you?
Why you alone
of all women
change the geometry of my life
the rhythm of my days
steal, barefoot,
into the world of my everyday affairs
and lock the door behind you,
yet I do not protest?
Why is it
I love precisely you,
desire precisely you,
choose precisely [...]
no comments | tags: arabic-literature, nizar-qabbani, photography, poetry | posted in literature, photography, poetry
Feb
3
2009
You ask for the date
of my birth?
Write this down.
It was the day you loved me
and gave me our first kiss.
….Nizar Qabbani
translated by Diana Der Hovanessian and lena Jayyusi
1 comment | tags: arabic-literature, love, nizar-qabbani, photography, poetry | posted in poetry
Feb
3
2009
What Is Love?
What is love?
We have read a thousand treatises on it
and still do not know what we have read
read works of interpretation, astrology and medicine
and do not know where we began
we have memorised the whole of folk literature
poetry and song
and remember not a single line
we have [...]
3 comments | tags: arabic-literature, nizar-qabbani, photography, poetry | posted in Arabic, poetry
