SHUROUK HAMMOUD

 

SHUROUK HAMMOUD

 

Falling Alive

 

I fall alive

Like a dry umbrella

The wind did not break its ribs,

And the heavy snow did not open a window

That overlooks any sky.

I fall in the well of my thoughts

The well I thought the heat of waiting

Had dried the water of its eyes;

Then I get drowned in my confusion

As the coasts sun does

Without getting wet with the eyes of its beholders

I fall awake

Like a prisoner whose has the nightmare

About long living under the same absurd.

I fall alive

Like any poet who prefers to live in the eyes of the words

Then drops from them like a tear

The air makes her cry

In order to survive. 

 

I Shrink

 

My friends decrease

Every single day

Like a tree that walks towards its autumn

My friends decrease

As the stairs of the outcasts ‘dreams increase

They decrease like a feast

No one is invited to

My dead friends were decreasing

Whenever my grief waved to them with its salt.

Since dead people prefer sweets

As I heard;

And I have nothing of it to give.

Because I save it all for a day

On which I see my friends decreasing,

Dissolving

Whenever I curl up like a snowball

That does not know

how to melt.

 

Naked Photographs

 

Have you ever paid attention to the photos of female poets

they choose to include with their books?

They have been always pale, despite the desperate attempts of their makeup

to hide the fallen autumn leaves

that fly on their eyelids.

Their rooms are overloaded with books,

Paintings of their sisters in sorrow

hide the wrinkles of their walls,

A pet that is often ugly,

Cheap cigarettes whose remains had accumulated like mass massacre,

A bed that burped its groan,

And a failed attempt to smile.

This is how their photos look, oh my mirror

And I am not better than them;

But I don't have a camera to document my loneliness

And inspire a poetess

to write a naked poem

Like this.

 

SHUROUK HAMMOUD

 

SHUROUK HAMMOUD "born in 1982 ", a Syrian poetess, literary translator, BA of arts graduate and a master degree graduate of text translation, Damascus.

She has four published poetry collections in Arabic language and two published poetry collection in English titled:(the night papers), (Blind time), and one bilingual book in Serbian and Macedonian and a poetry book in mandarin language titled:(the world is burning), in addition; excerpts of her poetry that have been published in many poetry anthologies in France, Serbia, Mexico, Italy, Taiwan, Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Macedonia, China, and India. A member of Palestinian writers and journalists’ union. Award winner of many local and international poetry awards. Her poetry was translated into 16 languages. She has translated also poetry of more than 50 poets from around the world.