ibram Poetry (27)

I conquer the world with words,

conquer the mother tongue,

verbs, nouns, syntax.

I sweep away the beginning of things

and with a new language

that has the music of water the message of fire

I light the coming age

and stop time in your eyes

and wipe away the line

that separates

time from this single moment.

i knew
While we were at the station
That you were waiting for another man,
I knew
While I was carrying your luggage
That you would be traveling with another man,
I knew that I was
No more than a disposable Chinese fan
Used to shield you
From the heat of the summer.
I also knew
That the love letters I wrote you
Were not more then mirrors
To reflect your pride.

*

In spite of that,
I will carry your luggage
And your lover's luggage
Because I cannot
Slap a woman
Who carries in her white handbag
The sweetest days of my life

When I love you

A new language springs up,

New cities, new countries discovered.

The hours breathe like puppies,

Wheat grows between the pages of books,

Birds fly from your eyes with tiding of honey,

Caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs,

The mangoes fall all around, the forests catch fire

And Nubian drums beat.

***

When I love you your breasts shake off their shame,

Turn into lightning and thunder, a sword, a sandy storm.

When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate

Against the ages of repression

And the ages

Of revenge against the laws of the tribe.

And I, when I love you,

March against ugliness,

Against the kings of salt,

Against the institutionalization of the desert.

And I shall continue to love you until the world flood arrives;

I shall continue to love you untill the world flood arrives.

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

i want you female as you are.
i claim no knowledge of womens chemistry
the sources of womens nectar
how the she-gazelle becomes a she-gazelle
nor how birds perfect the art of song

i want you like the women
in immortal paintings
the virgins gracing
cathedral cielings
bathing their breasts in the moonlight
i want you female... so trees will sprout green
and the misty clouds will gether...so that the rains will come

i want you female because
civilization is female
poems are female
stalks of wheat
vials of fragrance
even paris - is female
and Damascus - despite her wounds - remains female
in the name of those hwo want to write poetry... be a woman
in the name of those who want to make love... be a woman
in the name of those who want to know god.. be a woman

Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.

My letters to you
Are greater and more important than both of us.
They are the only documents
Where people will discover
Your beauty
And my madness.

Language



When a man is in love

how can he use old words?

Should a woman

desiring her lover

lie down with

grammarians and linguists?

***

I said nothing

to the woman I loved

but gathered

love's adjectives into a suitcase

and fled from all languages

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


I return to the womb in which I was formed
To the first book I read in it
To the first woman who taught me
The geography of love
And the geography of women


I enter the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque
And greet everyone in it
Corner to corner
Tile to tile
Dove to dove
pluck beautiful flowers of God’s words
And hear with my eye the voice of the mosaics
And the music of agate prayer beads
A state of revelation and rapture overtakes me,
So I climb the steps of the first minaret that encounters me
Calling:
“Come to the jasmine”
“Come to the jasmine”

I perform ablutions in rose water once.
And in the water of passion many times
And I forget—while in the Souq al-‘Attarine—
All the concoctions of Nina Ricci And Coco Chanel
What are you doing to me Damascus?
How have you changed my culture? My aesthetic taste?
For I have been made to forget the ringing of cups of licorice
The piano concerto of Rachmaninoff How do the gardens of Sham transform me?
For I have become the first conductor in the world
That leads an orchestra from a willow tree!!

I have come to you From the history of the Damascene rose
That condenses the history of perfume
From the memory of al-Mutanabbi
That condenses the history of poetry .
I have come to you . . .
From the blossoms of bitter orange And the dahlia .And the narcissus
And the 'nice boy'
That first taught me drawing .
I have come to you From the laughter of Shami women
That first taught me music And the beginning of adolesence
From the spouts of our alley
That first taught me crying
And from my mother’s prayer rug
That first taught me
The path to God
I open the drawers of memory
One . . . then another
I remember my father . . .
Coming out of his workshop on Mu’awiya Alley
I remember the horse-drawn carts .And the sellers of prickly pears . . .
And the cafés of al-Rubwa
That nearly—after five flasks of ‘araq—
Fall into the river
I remember the colored towels
As they dance on the door of Hammam al-Khayyatin
As if they were celebrating their national holiday.
I remember the Damascene houses
With their copper doorknobs
And their ceilings decorated with glazed tiles
And their interior courtyards
That remind you of descriptions of heaven

The Damascene House
Is beyond the architectural text
The design of our homesIs based on an emotional foundation
For every house leans . . . on the hip of another
And every balcony . . .
Extends its hand to another facing it
Damascene houses are loving houses . . .
They greet one another in the morning And exchange visits
Secretly—at night

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 blood
Nightingales . . . and grain . . . and domes
From Damascus, jasmine begins its whiteness
And fragrances perfume themselves with her scent
From Damascus, water begins . . . for wherever
You lean your head, a stream flows
And poetry is a sparrow spreading its wings
Over Sham . . . and a poet is a voyager
From Damascus, love begins . . . for our ancestors
Worshipped beauty, they dissolved it, and they melted away
From Damascus, horses begin their journey
And the stirrups are tightened for the great conquest
From Damascus, eternity begins . . . and with her
Languages remain and genealogies are preserved
And Damascus gives Arabism its form
And on its land, epochs materialize

I have no power to change you
or explain your ways
Never believe a man can change a woman
Those men are pretenders
who think
that they created woman
from one of their ribs
Woman does not emerge from a man's rib's, not ever,
it's he who emerges from her womb
like a fish rising from depths of water
and like streams that branch away from a river
It's he who circles the sun of her eyes
and imagines he is fixed in place

I have no power to tame you
or domesticate you
or mitigate your first instincts
This task is impossible
I've tested my intelligence on you
also my dumbness
Nothing worked with you, neither guidance
nor temptation
Stay primitive as you are

I have no power to break your habits
for thirty years you have been like this
for three hundred years
a storm trapping in a bottle
a body by nature sensing the scent of a man
assaults it by nature
triumphs over it by nature

Never believe what a man says about himself
that he is the one who makes the poems
and makes the children
It is the woman who writes the poems
and the man who signs his name to them
It is the woman who bears the children
and the man who signs at the maternity hospital
that he is the father

I have no power to change your nature
my books are of no use to you
and my convictions do not convince you
nor does my fatherly council do you any good
you are the queen of anarchy, of madness, of belonging
to no one
Stay that way
You are the tree of femininity that grows in the dark
needs no sun or water
you the sea princess who has loved all men
and loved no one
slept with all men… and slept with no one
you are the Bedouin woman who went with all the tribes
and returned a virgin
Stay that way."

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

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...
Rescue me from this ocean
For I don't know how to swim
The blue waves...in your eyes
drag me...to the depths
blue...
blue...
nothing but the color blue
and I have no experience
in love...and no boat...

If I am dear to you
then take my hand
For I am filled with desire...from my
head to my feet

I am breathing under water!
I am drowning...
drowning...
drowning...