Erasing all wisdom/

This is my fire/
There is no sign left-- my blood is the sign/

This is my beginning /

I entered your pool/
an earth circling round me your limbs a flowing Nile/we floated, we sank/you intersected in my blood/my waves cut your breasts you were squeezed / Let us begin: love has forgotten the blade of night/ do I scream that the flood is coming?/ Let us begin: a cry limps across the city and people are walking mirrors/ when the salt has gone over we meet are you?/

My love is a wound.
My body a rose on the wound,
which ca not be gathered except as death.
My blood a branch which has surrendered its leaves
and reposed."
Is the rock an answer? Does your death the master the sleeping tempt?
For your breasts I have auras of fondness, for your child face a face that resembles it...You? I have not found you.
And here is my flame erasing

I entered your pool I have a city beneath my sorrows I have what renders the green branch a snake and the sun a black lover, I have.../

Come forward poor of the Earth cover this age with rags and tears cover it with the body which seeks its warmth...the city is arches of madness/ the revolution should give birth to its own children I held . I buried millions of songs and came (are you in my grave?) Give me your hands to feel follow me . My time has not come yet and the cemetery of the world has come / For all the sultans I have ashes/ Give me your hands follow me...

ABLE TO CHANGE: THE MINE PLANTED UNDER CIVILIZATION -

THIS IS MY NAME
(A placard)

The footsteps of life halted at the door of a book that I had erased with my questions: what do I see? I see leaves in which, it is said, civilizations have rested (do you know a weeping fire?) I see the hundred as two hundreds the mosque and the church as two executioners and the Earth as a rose/

An eagle flew in my face / I sanctified the scent of chaos / may the time of sorrow come / may the people of flame and rejection rise / my desert is growing / I loved a baffled willow a swaggering tower an ageing minaret I loved a street on which the Lebanon arranged its bowels in rows of drawings and mirrors and charms /

I said now I surrender to the abyss of sex and hand to fire the prelude of the world I said settle down O, Nero, like a spear in the forehead of creation every home is Rome the imaginary and the real are Rome and Rome is the city of God and History I said settle like a spear, O. Nero... /

I ate nothing but sand at eve, my hunger revolves like the Earth stones palaces temples I spell like bread / in my third blood I saw the eyes of a wanderer who mixed people
with the waves of his eternal dream
bearing the flame of the distances
in the brain of a prophet and the blood of a savage/

......And they dumped 'Ali down a pit covered him with straw as the sun was carrying its victims and departing / does the light know its way in
the land of 'Ali? Will it meet us? We heard the blood, we saw the moaning /

We shall tell the truth: This is a country
which hoisted its thighs
as banners.
We shall tell the truth: This is no country.
It's our lunar stable,
the crutch of Sultans
and the carpet of the prophet.

We shall tell simplicity itself: In the universe
there is something called presence
and something called absence.
We tell the truth:
We are the absence.
No sky has begotten us, no Earth.
We are froth evaporating
out of the river of words.
We're rust in the sky and its orbits,
and rust in life!
(A clandestine manifesto)

MY HOMELAND IS A REFUGEE IN ME

And may my face be shade!
An age of enamoured stone rambles around me, I, the first lover of fire. The fire gets pregnant my days are a female fire under her breasts are blood and clashing the armpits are wells of tears a desultory river the sun sticks to it like a dress sliding / a wound which it split and caused to sparkle with lust and spices (is this your foetus?) My sorrows are roses

I entered the school of grass my forehead cleft and my blood dethroning its reign of power: I wondered what to do? Do I wrap the city with bread? I splintered in a corridor of fire / we partook of the blood of kings
and we went hungry

We carry the times,
mixing pebbles with stars
and driving the clouds
like a herd of horses.

ABLE TO CHANGE: THE MINE PLANTED UNDER CIVILIZATION -

THIS IS MY NAME

The nation has reposed
in the honey of the pulpit and the rebec.
The creator has fortified it like a moat
and sealed it.
Nobody knows where the door is.
Nobody asks where the door is.
(A clandestine manifesto)

.....And they dumped 'Ali down a pit embers were his garment we blazed we clung to his dismembered body I blazed good evening, O, Rose of Ashes / 'Ali is a homeland whose name is known to no language he bleeds negation affirms the grass and water 'Ali is an immigrant /

Where does the lord of sorrow sleep how does he carry his eyes? My sky is throttled my shoulder wilts and the Earth is a helmet filled with sand and straw I ran in panic a swallow covered me I rose up its breasts were flames I rose up opening a window: green fields I the other conqueror and the Earth is a game a horse entering the clouds /

Enamored trees emerge a bough shakes me water bursts out and the ancient Time of people is over I commenced my face is orbits and in the light a revolution lurks a village woke me up in its gusts / the silence broke embrace me, O, creator of tiredness grant me your swings test me
I am the rock I am the quest and the question neither a festival nor a hearth I am the ghost lurking in the crater of the city while people slumber / I entered the snare of light pure as violence light and shining like the wilderness of loss my limbs are lightning my limbs are sculpted winds / my bone is not the taste of thrones or silver I'm not a kingdom my blood is the migration of the sky and my eyes are birds / it's said your skin is thorns may you die and may my sky be yellowed by your skin it is said your skin is an age reposing in the stillness of the dream /

And may the lances of eternal conflict be born.
Between us stretches a gorge of crumbling,
my voice is the hallucination of an invader
breaking the crutch of songs and uprooting the alphabet /

..... And the women repose in a chamber,
seeking refuge in the inspired Books,
turning the sky
into a guillotine or a toy.
And 'Ali opens his sorrows
to the fools of destitution,
to those who aspired to become eagles
and were broken...

And 'Ali is a magic flame
burning in every water,
sweeping - he left no earth, no books
he swept history, covered daylight with his wings,
delighted to see daylight go mad /

This is the time of death,
but every death in it is an Arab death.
Days drop in its courtyards
like the trunk of an ageing cedar.
It is the last song of a bird
singing in a blazing forest /

My homeland chases me like a river of blood / the forehead of civilization is a mouldy pit / I collected a throne was reincarnated as a lantern/ Damascus became infatuated Baghdad grew tender / the sword of history is broken in the face of my homeland / who is the fire who is the flood? /

You were a desert when I arrested the snow in you I split like you into sand and fog I cried you are a god in order to see his face to erase
what links me to him I said I fused my body with your body you are the trough filled with my waves I am the night barefoot when I inserted you into my navel you procreated as a path in my steps you entered my infant water/ Seek the light be rooted in my wilderness and wandering

A fruit-bearing numbness creeps round the head a dream under the pillow my days are a hole in my pocket the world has decayed / Eve is pregnant in my trousers /
I walk on the ice of my pleasures /
walk between the baffling and the inimitable walk in a rose /
the flowers of despair wither and sadness rusts / an army of crushed faces crosses history an army like a thread an army that has succumbed and surrendered, an army like a shadow / I run in the voices of victims alone over the lip of death like a grave walking in a ball of light

We fused
the blood of the beloved ones protects like eyelashes I heard your pulse in my skin (are you a forest?) The barrier has collapsed (were you a barrier?) The sea gull asked a thread in the sea which a captain was spinning the snow of a traveller sang a sun it couldn't see (are you my sun?) My sun is a feather which drinks the space / the lost one heard a voice (are you my voice?) / My voice is my time your voluptuous pulse and your breasts are my blackness and every night my whiteness
A cloud crept, so I surrendered my face to the flood
and wandered aimlessly in my ruins.../

Thus, I loved a tent
and made the sand in its eyelashes
raining trees, and made the desert
a cloud. I said: This broken pitcher
is a shattered nation, this space
a sore on the eye, these eyes
are holes. I said: madness
is a planet hiding in a tree.

I'll see the face of the crow
in my country's countenance,
and name this book
a shroud, and name
this city carrion
and name the trees of Sham* sorrowful birds,
(perhaps after the naming a flower or a song will be born),
and name the desert a palm tree,
(perhaps the Earth will wake
and return as a child or the dream of a child).

Nothing chants my songs anymore:
"The knights of rejection will come
and the light will come at its appointed time..."

NOTHING REMAINS BUT MADNESS

Does my history have a child in your night
O, ashes of the hearth?
The wrath of revolution is infatuated embers
and a woman's chant:

Does my history have a child in your night? /

The dust of tradition lodges in the bone / should I seek refuge? Does dust grant a refuge?
No place and death is in vain... this is dizziness.
He who sees the corpse of the centuries upon his face
and stumbles listless,
feels old age
a nipple for childhood.

ABLE TO CHANGE: THE MINE PLANTED UNDER CIVILIZATION -

THIS IS MY NAME

Return to your cave histories are swarms of locusts, here is history living on the lap of a whore ruminating heaving inside the belly of a she-ass desiring the rottenness of the Earth and walking in a maggot return to your cave and cast down your eyes /

I glimpse a word /
around which we are all mirage and mud.
'Umru' al-Qays couldn't shake it and al -Ma'arri is its child,
under it al-Junayd caved in as did al-Hallaj and al-Niffari /
Al - Mutanabbi related that it was
the voice and the echo / you are the slave
it is the master /
It is also the angel / the nation is implanted
in it like a seed /
Return to your cave/

What? Have they exiled him or murdered him?/
They have murdered him... no, I'll not recount the death of my friend:
A countryside of yellow flowers rises around me / but I'll write of the last branch in the cedar tree of the house of a flock of wild doves
dragging the carpet of the night of the dream as high as towers / they've murdered him... no, I'll not utter the names of witnesses or murderers nor will I weep / I'll weep over a nation born dumb over the swan embracing the blueness of the shores weeping why weep over a child over a poet?/ I'll write of the last shade of the cedar tree of the house of a flock of wild doves dragging the carpet of the night of the dream as high as mountains /

The Caliph, our lord, decreed a law of water his people are mud and gravy and melted swords the master wore a crown inlaid with people's eyes / Is this city a sign are women's garments fashioned out of the pages of the Qur'an ?/
I inserted the socket of my eye in a gorge dug up by the hours I asked are my people a river without an estuary?

I sing

the language of blades I scream Time is punctured its walls have crumbled between my entrails I vomited I no longer have a history or a present / I am the solar insomnia and the spout the sin and the action wait for me, O, rider of clouds / my things are seductive and the sun bludgeons my limbs I am the inhabitant of expanses and psalms I am the bough seeking refuge: Listen do you hear the wailing in the heart of the world?/ I listen to death between my wrinkles / we hallucinated / I hallucinated in order to die well / I culled the breasts among my conventions / is your skin the fall are your thighs a wound that I filled / the world has healed / are you the quarry of night in my skin? My ax is sharpened I have become another stream my bank flows your arms are scooping an arch I carried you my face is bedlam a bird divided by the voice ask me I reply .../

A book of divination spoke to me its horses casting a spell on me the whispering has died down (do I, do you, now have anything to whisper?) / A bridled fire stranded ships a tamed sea / the sea gull has opened its eyes you close it has forgotten the opening in its ruffled feathers are water and sparks / had it been had it known thunder had thunder been in my hands /

Quiet, quiet this is a dome and my dwelling is in the vent of a breast / I go on digging had I changed had dust changed its virgins had fire been a hamza.*... /
You have dissolved in my being my being has no limits no sword vanish erase I have vanished one face we are my shirt is not an apple nor are you paradise we are a field and a harvest and the sun stands guard I have ripened you come from that green end this is our crop our bodies are a farmer and a harvester / O, most precious of my limbs come from that end / I've called up my death / and cascade me we have owned the ember of Time and longing we have owned the opulence of the universe donning people as its quilt we have found the path.../

I read in yellow leaves that I'd die in exile I quest for the shimmering light of the deserts my people stray .../ Damascus enters my garments in fear in love it mingles with my entrails drivelling... /

You have shed your skin leave your lips dissolve them in my teeth I am night and day I am Time we have dissolved be rooted in my wanderings and loss... /

Thus I loved a tent,
and made the sand in its eyelashes
raining trees,
and made the desert a cloud.
I saw God as a beggar in the land of 'Ali,
and baked the minaret,
and saw the sea arrive in the fog of the chimney
excited, whispering:
" He who formulated us
laid a foundation that was no more than a garret,
when the tempest struck, it crumbled
becoming wood to be burned in the mansion of a Caliph.
Rarely does the sea speak,
but the sea has now spoken:
' We have withered,
history has withered
because of its repetition in windmills,
the creator has fallen into its coffin...
the created has fallen into its coffin..."

And the women repose in a chamber,
rescuing the night out of its wells,
sewing up the sky,
and singing: ' 'Ali is a magic flame
burning in every water,'
and asking the heavens:
' A star or a mommy, what is this Earth?
Tearing up the heavens,
and patching up the heavens.'

" The impostor has buried a nation in his eyes.
The impostor has dug a nation out of his eyes,
and we heard him praying over it
and saw him salute it kneeling down,
and we saw
how the nation turned in his palms
into water,
and we saw
how the water became
a windmill ' /

Islands of flames in which Asia ascends ascends the future /
a sun went out we dreamt of things other than what the night conjured / my daylight is measurable by flames / I cried for help the voice of peoples is conquering the universe full of seduction /

NEITHER THE ASH NOR THE WIND AM I

My bed is farther and more salacious/ cages deserted roads
the horse of the past is ashes and the pigment of God
is a different colour /

NO HAND OVER ME

'Ali is the eternity of fire and childhood / do you hear the lightning
of the centuries hear the heaving of their footsteps? Is the road a book or a hand? / The finger of dust is like a dervish singing the dominion of myths / O, give us a homeland bring near the cities shake the trees of dreams change the trees of slumber the speech of the heavens to the Earth /
A child wanders aimlessly baffled
under the navel of a black woman searching
a child grows up.
And the Earth has a blind god dying.../

PEACE

to faces ambling in the loneliness of the desert,
to the East draped in grass and fire peace to the Earth
washed by the sea peace to its passion...

Your thunderbolt of nakedness grants me its rains thunder grips me in my breast Time has fermented O, advance this is my blood the glow of the East scoop me and vanish lose me the thunderclap is for your legs the lightning scoop me take my body as lining for your body / my fire is the orientation and the planet my wound is guidance I spell.../

I spell a star which I paint,
running away from my homeland in my homeland.
I spell a star which he paints
in the footsteps of his vanquished days.
O, ashes of the Word.
Does my history have a child in your night?

NOTHING REMAINS BUT MADNESS

I glimpse it now on the windows of the house,
sleepless amongst the sleepless stones,
like a child taught by a witch
that in the sea there is a woman
carrying his history in a ring,
and that she will appear
when the flames in the fireplace subside ... /

...And I saw history in a black banner
marching like a forest /
I wrote no chronicles /

I live in the longing the fire the revolution,
in the magic of their creative poison.
My homeland is nothing but this spark,
this lightning in the darkness of everlasting Time...