Drowning in the time allotted for
Truce, we Manufacture Spare Hearts²
Keep beauty hidden in a Sea of Grief,
A Sea of Grief, a Sea of Grief of Grief³
To Enjoy Fireworks – you would have
Had to have Lived a Different kind of Life⁴
After my Country, my Comrades, and my Youth
Are Burnt, how can my Poems not turn into Guns?⁵
Home: Hours when Calm & Conversation flash by
As Commercials in a Television series called War⁶
This War Halts the Stars in their Orbits⁷
Because I Love in a Deformed Society:
This is why you find me Deformed!⁸
The Dream Gasps in the Chest –
And the Heart Suppresses it⁹
The Wound does not need
A Poet to Paint the Blood¹⁰
¹ Lubna Ahmad Abu Dahrouj, Two Poems of Innocence Denied
² Hosam Maarouf tr. Fady Joudah, Specific Details
³ Kamal Qaddura tr. M. Jayyusi & Reed, Overflow
⁴ Naomi Shihab Nye, No Explosions
⁵ Rashid Husain tr. M. Jayyusi & Nye, Against
⁶ Eman Alhaj Ali, My Home
⁷ Mai Sayigh tr. L. Jayyusi & Nye, From Beirut Under Siege
⁸ ‘Abdallah Radwan tr. Elmusa & Nye, Deformed
⁹ Muhammad al-Dhahir tr. M. Jayyusi & Nye, Three Short Letters
¹⁰ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Akash & Forché, I Will Slog Over This Road