Best of Nizar Qabbani

Poem Title : When I Love
When I love
I feel that I am the king of time
I possess the earth and everything on it
and ride into the sun upon my horse.
***
When I love
I become liquid light
invisible to the eye
and the poems in my notebooks
become fields of mimosa and poppy.
***
When I love
the water gushes from my fingers
grass grows on my tongue
when I love
I become time outside all time.
***
When I love a woman
all the trees
run barefoot toward me...

Poem Title : A Lesson In Drawing
My son places his paint box in front of me
and asks me to draw a bird for him.
Into the color gray I dip the brush
and draw a square with locks and bars.
Astonishment fills his eyes:
"... But this is a prision, Father,
Don't you know, how to draw a bird?"
And I tell him: "Son, forgive me.
I've forgotten the shapes of birds."
***
My son puts the drawing book in front of me
and asks me to draw a wheatstalk.
I hold

Poem Title : Fragments From Notes On The Book Of Defeat
If an audience could be arranged
and also my safe return
this is what I'd tell the Sultan
This is what he'd learn:
O Sultan, my master, if my clothes
are ripped and torn
it is because your dogs with claws
are allowed to tear me.
And your informers every day are those
who dog my heels, each step
unavoidable as fate.
They interrogate my wife, at length,
and list each friend's name.
Your soldiers kick and beat me,
force me to eat from my shoes,
because I dare approach these walls
for an audience with you.
You have lost two wars
and no one tells you why.
Half your people have no tongues.
What good their unheard sigh?
The other half, within these walls,
run like rabbits and ants,
silently inside.
If I were given safety

from the Sultan's armed guards
I would say, O Sultan,
the reason you've lost wars twice
was because you've been walled in from
mankind's cause and voice.

Poem Title : A Damascene Moon
Green Tunisia, I have come to you as a lover
On my brow, a rose and a book
For I am the Damascene whose profession is passion
Whose singing turns the herbs green
A Damascene moon travels through my

Best of Nizar Qabbani

اجمل ما قال نزار قبانى

1..../

Poem Title : Maritime Poem
In the blue harbor of your eyes
Blow rains of melodious lights,
Dizzy suns and sails
Painting their voyage to endlessness.
***
In the blue harbor of your eyes
Is an open sea window,
And birds appear in the distance
Searching for islands still unborn.
***
In the blue harbor of your eyes
Snow falls in July.
Ships laden with turquoise
Spill over the sea and are not drowned.
***
In the blue harbor of your eyes
I run on the scattered rocks like a child
Breathing the fragrance of the sea
And return an exhausted bird.
***
In the blue harbor of your eyes
Stones sing in the night.
Who has hidden a thousand poems
In the closed book of your eyes?

If only, if only I were a sailor,
If only somebody'd give me a boat,
I would furl my sails each evening
In the blue harbor of your eyes.

2...../

Poem Title : your body is my map
raise me more love… raise me
my prettiest fits of madness
O’ dagger’s journey… in my flesh
and knife’s plunge…
sink me further my lady…
the sea calls me
add to me more death …
perhaps as death slays me… I’m 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 "A’Chaam"… to China…
in the seventh century of the "Birth"…
and lost in a dragon’s 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