<\/p>\n
Salah Abdoh, translating with Maryam Haidari, presents three poems by one of his favorite living poets in the Arabic language, Nouri al-Jarrah, long exiled from the Assads’ Syria. Here are three poems of love and desire, composed in Beirut during the darkest days of the civil war, and war within war.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I Saw You<\/strong><\/p>\n \nYesterday I saw you, yesterday \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In life, in Death<\/strong><\/p>\n \nIn life and in death In life and in death, On streets clogged with soldiers and stones,\u00a0 I love you.\u00a0<\/p>\n The moon enters a room\u00a0 So with the first and last spirit assigned to me In life and in death, I love you.\u00a0<\/p>\n In life, in death <\/p>\n I Speak of a Woman<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I speak of a woman A woman who exiles me from her lips, I speak of a woman who recalls in fury her feet Her hair was the long poem Love \u2013 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Beirut, Winter 1982-1983<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three poems of love and desire,\u00a0composed in Beirut during the darkest days of the civil war, and war within war, by exiled Syrian poet Nouri al-Jarrah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":7512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,68,50],"tags":[323,507,1060,1246,1367,1638],"coauthors":[2086],"class_list":["post-7510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-tmr-19-desire","category-tmr-issues","tag-beirut","tag-desire","tag-love","tag-nouri-al-jarrah","tag-poetry","tag-syria","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nyou and I were in town;
\nme, watching you pass,
\nyou, not watching;
\na hundred sentinels posted at the doors \u2013
\nweapons in hand,
\nbroad shouldered \u2013
\nshattered to pieces
\nto become shadows,
\nsentinels of your sleep.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nI love you.
\nYou are the reign of wakefulness,
\nthe heart\u2019s insurrection,
\nthe chaos of an undying day;
\nyou are objects in moments of transformation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nin recklessness,\u00a0
\nand through those intervals of darkness
\nin the balcony of oblivion,\u00a0
\nI love you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nand in the fork on the road to bewilderment<\/p>\n
\nalone;
\nstill,
\nI cannot love you with one life
\nalone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI shred the flowers of the soul and arrive at eternity.<\/p>\n
\nin the wilderness of spite,
\nand days of doubt
\nwhen men harvest a lethal blossom\u00a0
\nand exchange daggers and bullets and blows,<\/p>\n
\nand in bitter vigilance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\na woman who descends the staircase in a fury,
\nto kiss me and say:
\n\u201cDon\u2019t misunderstand me \u2026.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nthen takes me to bed.<\/p>\n
\na woman who calls me a scoundrel
\nand in the end insists\u00a0
\nthat I
\nam a man made of clay.<\/p>\n
\nshe sang in the room,
\nand in the balcony
\nshe contemplated
\nGod\u2019s blood orange sunset.<\/p>\n
\ngrief\u2019s apple.
\nShe was a drawing on the wall
\nof my house,
\na white cherry blossom tree
\nin my garden.\u00a0<\/p>\n