Home: hours when calm & conversation flash by
As commercials in a television series called War.²
To enjoy fireworks, we would have had
To have lived a different kind of life.³
The Wound does not need
A Poet to paint the Blood!⁴
After my Country, my Comrades,
And my Youth are Burnt, how can
My Poems not turn into Guns?⁵
A Dream gasps in the chest—
And the heart Suppresses it:⁶
Because we Love in a deformed society—
This is why you find us Deformed!⁷
We keep beauty hidden in a sea of Grief,
A sea of Grief, a sea of Grief of Grief⁸
Drowning in the time allotted for truce,
We manufacture spare Hearts.⁹
This War
Halts the Stars
In their orbits!¹⁰
¹ Lubna Ahmad Abu Dahrouj, Two Poems of Innocence Denied
² Eman Alhaj Ali, My Home
³ Naomi Shihab Nye, No Explosions
⁴ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Akash & Forché, I Will Slog Over This Road
⁵ Rashid Husain tr. M. Jayyusi & Nye, Against
⁶ Muhammad al-Dhahir tr. M. Jayyusi & Nye, Three Short Letters
⁷ ‘Abdallah Radwan tr. Elmusa & Nye, Deformed
⁸ Kamal Qaddura tr. M. Jayyusi & Reed, Overflow
⁹ Hosam Maarouf tr. Fady Joudah, Specific Details
¹⁰ Mai Sayigh tr. L. Jayyusi & Nye, From Beirut Under Siege