Poetry

  • Ghazal 24

    For years my heart asked me for Jamshid's cup. That which it held it begged from strangers. It sought the pearl which lies outside the world's shell from the lost ones who wait by the edge of the sea. Last night I carried my dilemma to the old Magus that with his vision he might…

  • Plucking Out White Hairs

    My white hairs are terribly unfeeling: Day after day I pluck them, but they grow again. They started as a single strand of silk, Then gradually became a thousand stalks of snow. I don't avoid the sniggers of beautiful women, I'm only ashamed of the children's fright. At New Year's, I passed the half-hundred mark…

  • Introduction to the Beyond

    trans. Bulgarian Jascha Kessler & Alexander Shurbanov You were dying, fully conscious, having summoned the incredible strength you needed to go calmly, not crying, not moaning, not shuddering — to keep fear away from me. Your hand went softly cold in my hand, and led me gradually beyond to death, so as to introduce me….

  • Ghazal 26

    If I follow in her tracks she stirs up trouble, and if I rest from the search she rises up in anger. And if on the road for a moment, out of loyalty, I fall on her tracks like dust, like the wind she flees. And if I seek half a kiss, a hundred taunts,…

  • Eight Fabliettes

    trans. French Norman Shapiro 1. The Little Pup Little pup sat eyeing bone, One he used to call his own. Burly hound came swaggering up, Snatching bone from little pup. Sky watched hound dine on said victual: Didn't care one whit or tittle. Pup's still little, as before; Hound's still hungry, wants some more. 2….

  • From West Beirut

    September 1982 (in connection with non- standard and negligent building in Lebanon) And it so happened that a soldier in the reserves      accidentally            pulled the latchet of a cannon — and a multi-story building five kilometers away fell heavily      on its occupants, eighty-five casualties. Only a few were rescued from the      ruins: an old…