I love you!! — my mouth said it,

and my pen bore it out...

I love you!! — a beautiful color

in which I dye my blood...

I love you!! Neither has the heart gone astray

nor the mind wandered...

I love you!! — a warbled song

whose echo stirs my sorrows...

I love you!! What beauty

is like this sorrowful beauty?!

I love you!! My feeling has not changed,

nor has my longing died down...

I love you!! In my mind you are

beauty, and sister, and mother.

I love you!! A small child

moves you, and a picture captivates you.

O enchantment of the soul, pass

through my heart and strut in your coquetry..

I have opened for you a corner of my heart

whose guidance will shield you from straying.

Latakia: Muhammad Abbas

The people fell silent... when the Devil spoke

words... that today he had repented..

And stillness settled... in a great calm —

no one wearied... and no wearying..

And a dumbness came over.. every son of Adam.. upon the earth

... so that none returns an answer..

And the evening companions turned... in the withholding of light..

into ruined graves... desolation.

And the vanguards of love faded... from the world..

no one waking.. and no companions

And the spread of sands... upon the shore became

wounded in conscience... unwilling to play at youth

And behold the wicked one... the Devil walking..

here or there.. feigning no innocence

And the beauties flung themselves... stoning the Devil..

and went off.. hastening away

Then the wretch showed himself... in the mantle of sorcery..

and among the beauties... he came as a book

Opening his palms... toward the fair ones...

for this one a cheer.. for that one a reproach

And behold, life... a cup and drunkenness...

and the committing of sins.. heart and fang

Safita — Ibrahim Mukhtar

“The Woman's Voice” raises it to the Arab peoples.

Shroud him

and bury him

and lodge him

in the deep pit of the grave.

And go your way — do not mourn him, for he is

a dead people that will not wake.

*

They humbled him,

they killed him,

they loaded upon him

more than he could bear.

He has borne humiliation with patience

for ages — in humiliation he is long-practiced.

*

Honor violated,

land plundered,

men hanged —

none of it stirred his anger.

Why then shed tears for nothing?

The log of firewood does not come to life.

*

No, by my Lord,

a people

without a heart

has nothing from its rising but death.

So let history fold up

the record of weakness and close out its books!

*

Many a vengeance,

many a shame,

many a fire

has stirred the heart of the coward.

All of this is in us — and yet

nothing has been stirred but the tongue!