ADNAN AL-RIKANI

 

Without You, My Homeland...

 

In the trap of fear...

Silence dared to recite worries

Weighed by a temporary death,

Before the journey could complete the sentence of

His advanced age...

Between the distances of wrinkles

Invaded his white complexion

And defiant against the dust of time,

It robbed him of his sight...

As he carved fingers of light

With the chisels of the miracle of day...

When absence heralds its silence from the womb

Open catacombs of night's speech

And from the edge of the dust

The throes of its throne tremble

Under the sun's feet, in the blink of an eye

This is the thread of my shroud... Without you, my homeland

Record above my tombstone

Sarcastically... That victory is defeat

And bury the dream of positions beneath My feet

Draw your borders, screaming...

I will walk behind my remains, smiling

And my moaning suckles from the breasts of my mourning

Record and fill my heart with a legend...

And from the ancestors, a light will spring forth

That will not scatter the rubble of my funeral,

To protect your banner with pride and with my blood

So do not whisper in the ear of the sky to close my eyes

And do not walk upon the defiled stones,

Since Eternity, and I run with the wind

To raise my flag in your mountains...

I will ascend slowly and with the wonder of a stranger

And with every step I call out, "Martyr!"

Perhaps your purity will ease my pain...

We soar with the gentleness of a fleeting radiance

Like a star returning from the heights of the pyramid

Or a melody dancing upon the strings of harmony

O lightest line whose verses were built

Like a butterfly searching From the Light of the Pen...

— Adnan Al-Rikani // 2025

 

A Homeland

The Size Of A Small Dream...

 

The letter flees to the valley of oblivion...

Waving to silence and to souls unlike mine.

Pain leans on the edge of a withered cry,

Blossomed in an ancient skull...

The genie of the bottle asks me,

with the features of a wandering dream,

Do you resemble me?

 

Or is the night, in its blackness,

kneeling before us?

Autumn did not steal its colors,

With the chalk of fleeting life, feminine,

With a half-smile for spring...

Perhaps I will see it in another absence,

Burning above the head of a matchstick,

Just as I burned with my wishes in a failed poem.

For the fingers swaying with ropes of tears,

Left their testament behind a dazzling curtain,

Written with ink that does not reflect its ideal image,

For nothing bestows charity upon anything...!

The river suddenly lost its course,

And the winds lash harshly at the stones.

The scent of morning attacks my coffee for no reason…!

And warns my pillow not to dream even of your image,

Before our conversation carries this pain,

And strangers unravel its mysteries…

I will place a message in the pocket of a traveling cloud,

And write to the wind your mischievous details,

With the song of sultans and the fragrance of mountain narcissus,

I will scatter it without a trace upon the ashes of waiting…!

After the sun's eye has nursed our ancestors,

And the sky's cunning has extinguished its blazing fire,

I will breathe into the breast of the cursed tree's trunk,

Whose eyelids have been laid bare by a mangy thorn...

And the homeland was sold... For the price of a small dream.

 

O Kurdistan Of Goodness...

 

Where are the waterwheels and the green pastures?

Have they vanished into the earth's belly,

or has abandonment overwhelmed you?

O Kurdistan of goodness...

I yearn for the sound of the sandgrouse...

When it soars above your heights, and gratitude

And the laughter of the trees around your waist

Showering, embraced by light and thought.

 

O Kurdistan of goodness...

Where is the melody of song for the night's darkness and remembrance?

And is there for the companion, after sorrow,

A cup of wine in which there is neither pleasure nor ease?

Do I reproach a heart that has been displaced, whose pains have failed?

The pangs of its moans in every dark corner?

There is no longer room for wounds or blows in it.

O Kurdistan of goodness...

Is it not time for the infant to return to its mother

And steal away from its journeys? The crescent moon is beauty and magic

All calamities have been forbidden and refused without you...

So how can the udder fill its drinker with bliss?

Your heart has turned to other than our world, in poverty and distress,

O Kurdistan of goodness...

Arise with a torrent of generosity and quench the thirst of our fears.

Our veins have dried up, and our paths have narrowed,

As if the bells of ruin and war have tolled.

A cold froth remains in the wind's quiver,

Its features are etched on the bottom of the cup of devotion,

A map of love with the attributes of sufficiency. And closeness

O Kurdistan of goodness...

O you mingled with my blood, O captivating soul

Do not stand on a crooked leg...

For in you the wound was complete before it betrayed you

Rivers drunk with affliction and trials

You hid the secrets of my cities under your shade...

And now the secret has no address, nor drink

Adnan Al-Rikani // 2025

 

ADNAN AL-RIKANI