Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology Book

"I spell out a dream.
I spelled out an illusion.
I read the story of her tears
page by page."
- Muhammad al-Thubaiti, from "I spelled out a Dream. I spelled out an Illusion"

"This thirsty smile on my lips
is a river of wind telling untold, untouched
tales."
- Muhammad al-Thubaiti, from "A Page from a Bedouin Notebook"

"And it is warm
when you appear in my dreams.
Your longing voice, a stoked and radiant fire … I wrap myself in your words like an ember that says:
Freedom.
I clasp my vision, reined in by the mind
curb my flowing sorrow.
Do not send me a woollen garment.
only come to me
with the dream."
- Ali al-Sharqawi, from "Warmth of Blood"

"You arrive - it is enough
that your presence is a sea,
my heart is a sail,
and there is no coastline."
- Ali al-Sharqawi, from "Presence"

"Ride, ride the horse of your despair;
Do not hark back to what you left behind.
The land you cross, love will not be there,
No fated meeting, no melodious air,
No welcome waits for you, and hope is blind."
- Ahmad al-Shami, "Defeat"

"… and I set her between yearning and madness,
between my veins and my blood's desire."
- Hamda Khamees, "About Love and Impossible"

"Tonight you and I and the long road of poems,
and a window overlooking the end."
- Dhabya Khamees, from "Love Poems In Times of War"

"Wrap yourself in a grave-like silence
and the solitude of a melancholy night.
Tell your soul: these days, emotions are hard as wood,
and you are merely a small concern among many."
- Ali Abdallah Khalifa, from "A Window For Longing"

"I wonder what is left of me ?
The crow's harsh call
that tears me
apart
at daybreak ?
While a flower blooms
I plant my dizzy head in mud
and smash it."
- Saad al-Humaidin, from "What Is Left Of Me ?"

"All my unrequited dreams, all my withered senses weep;
Tired of roaming through the night, now I only ask for sleep."
- Abdallah al-Faysal (1923-2007), "Love's Wounds"

"I asked my heart that it should forgive you
You whose very existence is atonement."
- Ibrahim al-Hadrani, from "Fountain"