#foremily

Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.

And without feet I can make my way to you,

without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you

with my heart as with a hand.

Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.

And if you consume my brain with fire,

She kissed me often, as if she feared

an imminent departure… Her affections

were restless, nervous.

I didn’t understand

such feverish haste. My coarse intention

never saw very far…

She foresaw!

She foresaw that our time would be short,

that the sail battered by the wind’s lash

was already waiting… and in her anxiety

she tried to leave me her soul with every embrace,

to put all eternity into her kisses.

Amado Nervo

BY NIZAR QABBANI

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 for your 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 gypsies women will envy

searching for a face, for a voice

which is all the faces and all the voices...

Your love entered me... my lady

into the cities of sadness

and I before you, never entered

the cities of sadness

I did not know...

that tears are the person

that a person without sadness

is only a shadow of a person...

Your love taught me

to behave like a boy

to draw your face with chalk

upon the wall

upon the sails of fishermen's boats

on the Church bells, on the crucifixes,

your love taught me, how love,

changes the map of time...

Your love taught me, that when I love

the earth stops revolving,

Your love taught me things

that were never accounted for

So I read children's fairytales

I entered the castles of Jennies

and I dreamt that she would marry me

the Sultan's daughter

those eyes...

clearer than the water of a lagoon

those lips...

more desirable than the flower of pomegranates

and I dreamt that I would kidnap her like a knight

and I dreamt that I would give

her necklaces of pearl and coral

Your love taught me, my lady,

what is insanity

it taught me... how life may pass

without the Sultan's daughter arriving

Your love taught me

How to love you in all things

in a bare winter tree,

in dry yellow leaves

in the rain, in a tempest,

in the smallest cafe, we drank in,

in the evenings... our black coffee

Your love taught me... to seek refuge

to seek refuge in hotels without names

in churches without names...

in cafes without names...

Your love taught me... how the night

swells the sadness of strangers

It taught me... how to see Beirut

as a woman... a tyrant of temptation

as a woman, wearing every evening

the most beautiful clothing she possesses

and sprinkling upon her breasts perfume

for the fisherman, and the princes

Your love taught me how to cry without crying

It taught me how sadness sleeps

Like a boy with his feet cut off

in the streets of the Rouche and the Hamra

Your love taught me to grieve

and I have been needing, 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

i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body. i like what it does,

i like its hows. i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones,and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz

of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

How to love you in all things

in a bare winter tree,

in dry yellow leaves

in the rain, in a tempest,

in the smallest cafe, we drank in,