1. Alone.. with fever and your phantom and poetry
I ask my life how did you squander, O my life

2. Days pass by me, their dawn resembles
Their gloom.. and I did not enjoy a night or dawn

3. I console myself with illusions as one complained
To the void through the desert, gloom over gloom

4. And I sip from hopes a wine cup whose wine
Flows in a heart that never tasted joy of wine

5. Shall I escape the storm, O heart, towards a storm?
Are not the seas tired of the seas' roaring?

6. And from a crying stance over the arms of parting
To a lasting stance over the palm of estrangement

7. And from the falling of a sword that slept between my ribs
To the falling of a spear wandering my back

8. Oh grant me some tranquility.. Lord grant me tranquility
To restore a lost one from my suspicions and thoughts

9. Salma.. O full moon that gleamed
On a horizon that was hoping for the full moon

10. Take from my eyes my story and features
And how despair was fathomed while dreaming of victory

11. And how I accompanied people until I knew them
So I returned, wounded in eye, hand and chest

12. And how I gave my soul to glory and it sold it
So I returned without a soul, gnawing on fingers

13. Salma..If time gave me back my brains
And I gifted it.. But it is the nation of time

14. It plays with it.. Did you ever see a wounded nightingale
Sing while in the clutch of a falcon?

15. It excuses it at times with poverty and at others with wealth
And deceives it with poetry at times and with prose at others

16. Shall I give you my pain.. Shall I give you my torment?
Shall I give you a silent garden, shy of blossoms?

17. I seek refuge for you from my wretched love and passion
That is arduous and from a longing that shakes with horror

18. Another looks upon you in your eyes like stars
And I discern in them the night, a veil over a veil

19. Another sings you every lovely tune
While I chant nothing but dirge through my lips

20. And another gifts you pearls.. Woe to the poet
Who says: take from me poems like pearls

21. Salma.. Do not throw your heart in my hands
I fear for it, for it is a child vulnerable to breaking

22. And do not shed the precious tear upon one bitter
You know the tear is a kind of deceit

23. I loved so creation reproached him with misery
And he was faithful so creation rewarded him with betrayal

24. If he said: I love.. experiences belied him
Begotten with sorrow and bitter pain

25. Leave him to his world for he has gotten used to misery
And accustomed to long journeying in the rugged path

26. It is as if the nights swore never to let him taste
Tranquility or hope except in the gloom of the grave

27. **************
**************

28. To my friend, the poet Muhammad Hassan Faqih
Jeddah: 1977 AD 1397 AH