BILAL AL MASRI

 

 

With Me

 

With me, you’ll be alone

like a ring on heaven’s finger,

or in the heart of the lake

you will simply be a stone.

With me, you’ll lose yourself.

I will sit in between you and me

to watch the Earth

melting without breath.

Don’t bring me roses.

Don't say a single word.

You are alone with me.

 

The Treasure

 

How can I be sure

that language is the treasure

in the hinterland of the soul?

I doubt that balconies –

which dangle from buildings

like the earrings of women –

are the entire city!

Rather the body is the original place

where Time was born.

 

Sometimes I feel the Earth

is a morsel in the mouth

of the universe –

this predatory being

expanding endlessly,

like paradise is

a search for pure nihilism,

yet that discovery

brings no new knowledge,

just hell growing out of questions.

 

Tears

 

Dogs chase after the Moon.

Spinster cats miaow.

In the dead of night

poor mice hide

in the ear of an old woman,

combing her grey hair,

which falls like snowflakes

and melts like tears.

Meanwhile there are people

wandering along the paths,

crushing each other’s hearts.

 

Whiteness

 

What the snowman wanted to say

before he melted:

Why do one’s eyes go white

from sadness,

why does foam vanish irrevocably,

what is this whiteness

that causes blindness?

 

Squabbles

 

The tree’s more lovely when it’s naked,

seeing through it is more joyful.

Through it, I can watch the sky

wilting on bare boughs.

Like a little child

I can lift the sky up, near or far.

You grown-ups, older people,

you don't know

how we shake each other

like a squabble

between nothingness and being.

 

Translated From Arabic By Dr Anba Jawi MBE  And Dr Mohamad Haj Mohamad

 

BILAL AL MASRI

 

BILAL AL MASRI was born in Tripoli, Lebanon in 1974. He is a self-taught person, active in the Lebanese literary community and known throughout the Arab world. He has published four poetry collections and has selected poetry translated into French in 2023. He has written three novels and two plays as well as children’s stories, which were translated into English in Canada.   Selected poems have appeared in six anthologies, including in English and Polish. He has received four different awards including the “Zheng Nian cup” national prize in China in 2023.  His most recent poetry collection is “Crushing His Head with the Stone of Memory,” part of Ishraqat – a series on Arab Poetic Voices that is being curated by the iconic Syrian poet, Adonis. Bilal is married to Sonia Essa (of Palestinian heritage) and they have two children together, Waheeb, aged twelve, and Ghazle, aged ten .