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Throwing Your Grief as a Rock into the
Waters
In
your forties,
Wingless,
You
urge the meaning to fly once again,
As
though you are powerful enough, once more, to step over the clouds.
Heading
towards your own wilderness
The
winds put all the sins of the tale upon your shoulders.
Since
you stopped at the gates of your past
With
chained legs,
Neither
your years returned to the song;
Nor
did the gorgeous girls come back from the trees of childhood jocundly
To
your fields.
In
your forties,
There,
near the springs
Longing
takes you towards the deers,
That
no more listen to your songs
When
you feel their approaching steps
And
when the bird of words chirps
On
a lonely branch in the heart.
You
throw your grief like a rock into the sea
And
see your face burning
In
the furnace of the lost painful moment.
In
your forties,
When
you are fastened
To
the flutes on the shawl of a ballad,
Find
a dove forgotten in your own travelling meaning.
Do
not exhaust the tender melody
With
sighs of the memory that circle around your soul like bracelet.
In
your forties,
The
past assumes you are so close to its orchards,
While
you are there still stuck in the wilderness of your fantasies.
When
you started your voyage
Towards
your glittering metaphor,
You
paid no attention to the thorny questions
Staring
from afar at your feet.
In
your forties on the roads,
No
more you need to fold your shadows
As
you head towards the pleasures of life,
Trying
to reach the lost bank of the river.
Memory
asks, “When was it when you went bewildered in the presence of oblivion?”
What
would have hurt your innocent past if you stopped at its noble gates for
greeting,
Dropping
off the burdens of rejection that have watered your eyes with the thirst of
nothingness?
In
your forties,
A
woman from the past visits you;
Don’t
be rude to her flutes by asking about her distant love stories.
Save
her from the deceptive mills,
And
restore her to pure joy
And
to her flowers;
Listen
to the bird of her soul
Neglected
in the trees of absence;
Be
like the soft rains for her if she goes astray;
Be
the metaphorical chord if she smiles;
And
be an existential passion
If
she looks at you.
But,
when you approach her extensive fires,
Be
nothing but ashes.
Only You, Nobody but You
When
you sleep,
Nobody
sees you,
Even
if you cry loudly in the prairies of dreams.
Your
footsteps are traceless
Even
if you walk upon the silk of the first desire towards the farthest kiss.
The
earth has now power to recognize your radiance in the vastness of absence.
When
you sleep,
You
lock your eyelids
Against
faces no longer know the true meaning of love in their own eyebrows.
With
your hands,
You
dig a hole for the past
Where
through, you pierce toward the spring of those who enveloped your heart with
liveliness, singing, and hope.
In
your sleep,
It
is enough to wave from your bed
For
those you cherish
To
make them land down from the clouds of their past,
And
from their oblivion.
You
proceed to distant years
With
a soul liberated,
No
misty horizons hinder your way towards your far places.
In
sleep,
Fantasy
overcomes its own shortcomings,
Hopefulness
takes revenge from its pangs and its guards.
In
sleep, no day or night is there;
Times
are equal in meaning and in the passion for meditation on absence.
In
sleep, you go farther than the echo of your memory,
And
closer to the blossoming of a rose in its field.
You
are the last, the first, and the second.
Your
shadow on the road is the third of two
Ready
for questions towards a forgotten destination.
In
sleep, you need no compass
To
know that all the surrounding eyelids are primarily directed to you
As
they emerge from the past.
Only
you, nobody but you
Have
to observe the lightness of the souls,
And
touch the feathers of their merry bird.
Only
you
Have
to liberate the last doe of sentiment
Off
the traps of her upcoming gloom
And
its steel chains
In
sleep, it is easy to find
A
noiseless place
To
water the roses of your soul with sentimental clouds,
No
more, you need an extra key to enter
Your
beloved’s home at night;
In
sleep, the beloved who neglected you during her painful times
Will
come to you—
The
beloved who hid her passions
In
the spring of her startled cheeks and eyelids.
In
sleep, it is not a sin to date
Any
of the ladies who once captivated your youth with her eyelash
And
who loved you against her family’s wish.
You
merrily travel in your dreams towards the secret
Of
the muddled planet in the eyelids of those whom you have seduced on the beaches
of silence last time.
You
are no more obsessed to know the lady who ignored your glamour coming from the
past memories;
No
woman can resist your masculine scent,
Tonight.
In
sleep, friends squat on the soft rug
Of
your heart;
That
lady, who granted you intimacy for a time, visits you;
And
there come those you have waited;
Among
them is a strange child you hardly remember;
The
child who keeps looking at you when you ignore him;
And
whenever you come close to him, you feel strange!
That
strange child bears within his hands a blind lantern;
You
have no knowledge of his secret;
And
when you try to get a spark from his fire,
You
drown in darkness!
Your
attempts at reading the absence of his features exhaust you.
His
eyes are but thorns of the past
That
attack your eyelids like sharp arrows whenever you look.
Tears Rolling
down Her Salted Burning Lips
We
were building sand homes near thecoast
When
he left for fishing, for the last time…
We raced to
return the trimmings of his net
To
his little canoe.
With
little hands
We
waved unceasingly to the last wave
That snatched his
boat away,
Away from the
times of our childhood.
Behind
the window bars, our little heads squeezed;
With
eyes fixed on the coast road;
Mother's
wings spread over our little shoulders
As
she injected her body among ours;
Immensely worried about our budding
innocent souls.
Scared that her
long hair may submit to the winds,
If
she bent forward on
the metal railing,
I drew her back towards the warmness of
the timber room.
Then
I stared at the seashores in her eyes,
And saw the sea travelling far
beyond the sand homes.
"Sure,
he will return," she said,
Before
her tear floored upon my lips— mysalted burning lips.
Twenty
years did not avail to demolish the sand homes
In our
eyes.
The dried out face of my
father laid upon the waves
Became a
window that looks at the silver years of our age;
An
age abandoned in muddy traps.
Still,
my beloved mother conceals her regrets behind her shadow.
Still,
on the mornings,
She makes fresh
bread with her dreams;
And
at midnights,
She
reheats what remains of her wishes on the stove of her soul.
Just
to live on.
Author’s
Bio:
*Ali
Al Hazmi. Born in Damadd, Saudi Arabia, Ali Alhazmi obtained a
degree in Arabic Language and Literature at Umm Al-Qura University, Faculty of
Arabic Language. As early as 1985, Ali started publishing his poetry in a
variety of local and Arabic international cultural publications including The
Seventh Day (Paris), Creativity (Cairo), Nazoa (Amman) and The New Text. He has
participated in various International Poetry Festivals including; Costa Rica
(2013), Spain (2014), Uruguay (2015), Cuba, Colombia and Turkey (2016), Italy
and Romania (2017) and Spain (2018). His work has been translated into many
languages, and his publications include: A Gate for the Body (1993), Loss
(2000), Deer Drink Its Own Image (2004), Comfortable on the Edge (2009), and
Now in the Past (2018). His awards include: Medal of Poetry (Uruguay, 2015),
The World Grand Prize for Poetry, (Romania 2017), the Verbumlandi Prize (Italy,
2017) and Best International Poet (China, 2018). Global IconAward (Italy, 2020). Italian Prize "Colors of
the Soul" (Italy, 2021).)