1. Damascus, I returned without my grief or joy
A grieving ghost leads me to a ghost

2. I lost in you a path I once knew
Eyes drunken, overflowing with intoxication

3. The night crucified on a body
I don't know which veil of beauty brought my ecstasy

4. Silk of Damascus caressed
By an Iraqi flask of mature, gushing wine

5. I pushed my soul against my soul and it distanced me
From the breasts of a garden in pollination season

6. I provoke its scandals with a kiss and it expels me
Pulled to it by teasing, not yet exposed

7. It divines the unseen with my hand feeling
Like a bracelet above limpid, merry water

8. Oh what a slow, humble, cheap descent
And lofty, quick, aspiring ascent

9. What did I find in life that pleased me?
A breast leaning on me and a breast that was in wander

10. This one stabs me until I die for him
That one strokes my cheek with gentle love

11. As if an almond blossom in its opening
Leaks in my fist with exhaled amber

12. Damascus, I returned and my heart completely wounded
Where was a stranger without wounds?

13. The path is lost and snow was covering me
The soul desolate and the night dripping

14. This bag returned my only homeland
The journey of life returned my only flask

15. The night crucified on a hope
That I not die a stranger’s death of ghosts

16. Oh garden the night passed in at dawn
Perhaps in it a comfort for my flask

17. So its olives ripened between their greenness
And the green of night and cups and salt

18. I got drunk on life and it wakes me
What was of grapes in it and dates

19. Behind me the night dogs bite
The edges of my clothes on a bone's gift

20. I laughed at it and myself so it kills them
Its flames and joy kills me