Your Body Is My Map

raise me more love... raise me
my prettiest fits of madness
O daggers journey... in my flesh
and knifes plunge...
sink me further my lady...
the sea calls me
add to me more death ...
perhaps as death slays me... Im revived
your body is my map...
the world's map no longer concerns me...
I am the oldest capital of sadness...
and my wound a Pharaonic engraving
my pain.... extends like an oil patch
from Beirut... to China...
my pain... a caravan...dispatched
by the Caliphs of "AChaam"... to China...
in the seventh century of the "Birth"...
and lost in a dragons mouth...
bird of my heart... "naysani"
O sand of the sea, and forests of olives
O taste of snow, and taste of fire...
my heathen flavor, and insight
I feel scared of the unknown... shelter me
I feel scared of the darkness... embrace me
I feel cold... cover me up
tell me children stories...
rest beside me...
Chant to me...
since from the start of creation
Ive been searching for a homeland to my forehead...
for a womans hair...
that writes me on the walls... then erases me...
for a womans love... to take me
to the borders of the sun... and throws me...
from a womans lip... as she makes me
like dust of powdered gold...
shine of my life. my fan
my lantern. declaration of my orchards
stretch me a bridge with the scent of oranges...
and place me like an ivory comb...
in the darkness of your hair... then forget me
I am a drop of water... ambivalent
remaining in the notebook of October
your love crushes me...
like a mad horse from the Caucasus throwing me under its hoofs...
and gargles with the water of my eyes...
add to me more fury... add to me
O prettiest fits of my madness
for your sake I set free my women
and effaced my birth certificate
and cut all my arteries...

Nizar Qabbani

Nizar Qabbani was a Syrian diplomat, poet, writer, publisher, and one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world. Renowned for his evocative and sensual poetry, he has written extensively on themes of love, eroticism, feminism, and Arab nationalism. His literary works have left a significant impact on Arabic literature and culture, making him an iconic figure whose legacy persists beyond his lifetime.

Nizar Qabbani

Maritime Poem

Nizar Qabbani, Simple Poetry

The Face Of Qana

Nizar Qabbani, Simple Poetry

A Brief Love Letter

Nizar Qabbani, Simple Poetry

Language

Nizar Qabbani, Simple Poetry

English

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Damascus, What Are You Doing to Me?

1

My voice rings out, this time, from Damascus
It rings out from the house of my mother and father
In Sham. The geography of my body changes.
The cells of my blood become green.
My alphabet is green.
In Sham. A new mouth emerges for my mouth
A new voice emerges for my voice
And my fingers
Become a tribe

2

I return to Damascus
Riding on the backs of clouds
Riding the two most beautiful horses in the world
The horse of passion.
The horse of poetry.
I return after sixty years
To search for my umbilical cord,
For the Damascene barber who circumcised me,
For the midwife who tossed me in the basin under the bed
And received a gold lira from my father,
She left our house
On that day in March of 1923
Her hands stain...

Nizar Qabbani

The Epic of Sadness

Your love taught me to grieve
and I have been in need, for centuries
a woman to make me grieve
for a woman, to cry upon her arms
like a sparrow
for a woman to gather my pieces
like shards of broken crystal

Your love has taught me, my lady, the worst habits
it has taught me to read my coffee cups
thousands of times a night
to experiment with alchemy,
to visit fortune tellers

It has taught me to leave my house
to comb the sidewalks
and search your face in raindrops
and in car lights
and to peruse your clothes
in the clothes of unknowns
and to search foryour image
even.... even....
even in the posters of advertisements
your love has taught me
to wander around, for hours
searching for a gypsies hair
that all gyps...

Nizar Qabbani

Words

He lets me listen, when he moves me,
Words are not like other words
He takes me, from under my arms
He plants me, in a distant cloud
And the black rain in my eyes
Falls in torrents, torrents
He carries me with him, he carries me
To an evening of perfumed balconies


And I am like a child in his hands
Like a feather carried by the wind
He carries for me seven moons in his hands
and a bundle of songs
He gives me sun, he gives me summer
and flocks of swallows
He tells me that I am his treasure
And that I am equal to thousands of stars
And that I am treasure, and that I am
more beautiful than he has seen of paintings
He tells me things that make me dizzy
that make me forget the dance and the steps


Words...which overturn my...

Nizar Qabbani

Five Letters to my Mother

Good morning sweetheart.
Good morning my Saint of a sweetheart.
It has been two year mother
since the boy has sailed
on his mythical journey.
Since he hid within his luggage
the green morning of his homeland
and her stars, and her streams,
and all of her red poppy.
Since he hid in his cloths
bunches of mint and thyme,
and a Damascene Lilac.



I am alone.
The smoke of my cigarette is bored,
and even my seat of me is bored
My sorrows are like flocking birds looking for a grain field in season.
I became acquainted with the women of Europe,
I became acquainted with their tired civilization.
I toured India, and I toured China,
I toured the entire oriental world,
and nowhere I found,
a Lady to comb my golden hair.
A Lady...

Nizar Qabbani

Letter From Under The Sea

If you are my friend...
Help me... to leave you
Or if you are my lover...
Help me... so I can be healed of you...
If I knew....
that the ocean is very deep... I would not have swam...
If I knew... how I would end,
I would not have began

I desire you...so teach me not to desire
teach me...
how to cut the roots of your love from the depths
teach me...
how tears may die in the eyes
and love may commit suicide

If you are prophet,
Cleanse me from this spell
Deliver me from this atheism...
Your love is like atheism... so purify me from this atheism

If you are strong...
Rescueme from this ocean
ForI don't know how to swim
The blue waves... in your eyes
drag me... to the depths
blue...
blue...
nothingbut t...

Nizar Qabbani

My Love (Do Not Ask Me)

Do not ask me, the name of my love
I fear for you, from the fragrance of perfume
contained in a bottle, if you smashed it,
drowning you, in spilled scent

By God, if you even croaked a letter,
Lilacs would pile up on the paths

Do not look for it here in my chest
I have left it to run with the sunset

You can see it in the laughter of doves
In the flutter of butterflies
In the ocean, in the breathing of dales
and in the song of every nightingale
in the tears of winter, when winter cries
in the giving of a generous cloud

Do not ask about his lips...as elegant as the sunset
And his eyes, a shore of purity
And his waist, the sway of a branch
Charms...which no book has contained
Nor described by a literate's feather
And his ches...

Nizar Qabbani