Arabic Poem "A Wild Cat" By Suad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah

Your love lurks in my veins like a bandit
Commits arson, shatters lanterns
And skulks in the corners of my veins
Like a wild cat with sharp claws
Alert to hunt moths
To pounce on birds
And I lie awake at night waiting for it to come forth
From my blood.


You came with your conquering army, and caused an upheaval
That changed my life
You sequestered all my possessions
Bound me with chains of gold
And put me under house arrest
Within the limits of your eyes
You locked me in the cell of love
And took the keys away with you.

Arabic Poem "You Alone" By Suad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah

You alone . . . control my history
And write your name on the first page
And on the third, and on the tenth,
And on the last.
You alone are allowed to sport with my days
From the first century of my birth
To the twenty-first century after love.
You alone can add to my days what you wish
And delete what you wish
My whole history flows from the palms of your hands
And pours into your palms.

Arabic Poem "Free Harbor" By Suad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah

Many ships have asked for sanctuary
In the harbor of my eyes
I refused asylum to all of them
Your ships alone
Have the right to take refuge
In my territorial waters
Your ships alone
Have the right to sail in my blood
Without prior permission.

Arabic Poem "Mad Woman" By Suad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah

I am quite mad and you are wholly sane
From the mind's paradise I've sought to flee
You are all wise, yours are the summer months
So leave the winter's changing face for me.

I'm sick with love and I'm past any cure
Oppressed in body, that is woman's plight
My nerves are taut and should you only whisper
Into the empty air I would take flight.


I'm like small fish lost in the great ocean
When will you lift the siege ? You've hidden away
The key to unlock my house in your own pocket
And enter my life's details day by day.

O love, my passion whirls me dizzily
Gather my scattered soul whose fragments fly
For you are standing at the frozen pole
And I beneath an equatorial sky.

O love, I stand against the ten commandments
History behind is only blood and sand
To love I owe allegiance. Lemon trees
Within your breast my only native land.

Arabic Poem "Shade And Noon Sun" By Muhammad Al-Maghut

All the fields of the world
At odds with two small lips
All the streets of history
At odds with two bare feet.

Love,
They travel and we wait
They have gallows
We have necks
They have pearls
And we have freckles and moles
They own the night, the dawn, the afternoon sun and the day
And we own skin and bones.


We plant under the nooday sun,
And they eat in the shade
Their teeth are white as rice
Our teeth dark as desolate forests,
Their breasts are soft as silk
Our breasts dusty as execution squares
And yet, we are the kings of the world:
Their homes are buried in bills and accounts
Our homes are buried in autumn leaves
In their pockets they carry the addresses
of thieves and traitors
In ours we carry the addresses
of rivers and thunderstorms.
They own windows
We own the winds
They own the ships
We own the waves
They own the medals
We own the mud
They own the walls and balconies
We own the ropes and the daggers.

And now beloved
Come, let us sleep on the pavements.

Arabic Poem "From the Doorstep to Heaven" By Muhammad Al-Maghut

Now,
With the sad rain
Drenching my sad face,
I dream of a ladder of dust,
Collected from hunched backs
And hands clinging onto knees,
To mount to highest heaven

And discover
What becomes of our prayers and sighs.
O my beloved,
All the prayers and sighs,
All the laments and cries for help,
Springing from
Millions of lips and hearts,
Through thousands of years and centuries,
Must be gathered somewhere in heaven,
Like clouds.
And maybe
These words of mine
Are now close to those of Jesus.
So let us await the tears of heaven,
O beloved.