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| Nizar Qabbani. |
Nizar Qabbani was a revolutionary lover, whose powerful poetry was known for its simple language. With aesthetic anger, he wrote verses that dealt with love, politics, nationalism, eroticism and feminism. He once declared love in Arab society as a “prisoner” that needs to be set free.
Qabbani was born in Damascus in 1923. He worked as a diplomat within several Syrian embassies around the world. After resigning from his job at the Syrian foreign ministry, he started a publishing house in Beirut in 1966, but left Lebanese capital after the death of his wife, Balqis, during the civil war in 1981. He died in London in 1998. He is one of the most celebrated modern Arab poets. The Arab American News translates this poem as homage to Qabbani.
Beirut, and love, and rain
Translated by Ali Harb and Patrick Higgins
You pick the place…
Any cafe, inside the sea like a sword,
Pick any place…
I am submissive to the oceanic swans in your eyes,
They come from the ends of time
When it rains in Beirut…
I need some affection,
so come into my wet raincoat…
Come into the wool sweater…
and into my skin…and into my voice…
Eat from the grass of my chest like a horse…
Immigrate to me like the red fish…from my eye to my eye,
and from my hand to my hand…
Draw my face on the notepads of the rain, and the night,
and the crystal of shops, and the peel of oak trees…
Make love to me… under the thunder and lightning…
And the music of the gutters…offer me a homeland in a gray, fur coat…
Crucify me; a messiah between your breasts…
Baptize me in rose water…and myrtle plants…and the scent of flowers.
Hug me in the squares…
And over the broken papers, embrace me under the watchful eyes of people…
Refuse the era of the Sultans; refuse the fatwas of imbeciles…
Scream like a wolf in the middle of the night.
Bleed like a wound in a breast…
Offer me the greatness of feeling death…
And the grace of hallucination…
When it rains in Beirut,
My melancholy grows branches, my sadness grows hands,
So come into the wool sweater
We are under the water, palm of my soul…two palms…
***
It is not a clear decision in my mind,
Take me wherever you want…
Leave me wherever you want…
Purchase for me today’s newspaper…and pencils
and wine…and cigarettes…
These are all the keys…so you lead
March towards the wind and serendipity…
March in nameless alleys…
Love me a little…
and break the laws of traffic a little…
and leave for me your right hand a little…
for your arms are a safe haven…
***
There are no maps to Love in Beirut…
No, and no maps to the obsession in my chest…
So look for an apartment buried in the sand…
Look for a hotel that doesn’t ask lovers about their names…
Keep me up in the alleyways that have nothing…
except a singer and certainty…
***
You pick the place
Because love in Beirut is like God…everywhere.
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