I HAVE NO POWER

The most beautiful sea, hasn't been crossed yet. The most beautiful child, hasn't grown up yet. Our most beautiful days, we haven't seen yet. And the most beautiful words, I wanted to tell you I haven't said yet...

― Nâzım Hikmet

Had I told the sea

What I felt for you

It would have left

it’s shores

It’s shells

And followed me

- Nizar Qabbani

I’m not a fire cracker, I'm a bomb. I don’t disappear when I explode, I blow up and kill everyone.

🖼️:Aron Wiesenfeld

You who pass between our fleeting words

Like bitter dust, pass wherever you want, but do not pass between us like flying insects

Take the past if you like, to the antiques market

Stack your illusions in a deserted hole, and go!

And reside wherever you like, but do not reside among us. It is time for you to depart and die wherever you wish, but do not die among us.

So get out of our land, from our sea, from our wheat, from our salt, from everything that has wounded us, and be erased from the vocabulary of memory.

I HAVE NO POWER

"I have no power to change you or explain your ways Never believe a man can change a woman Those men are pretenders who think that they created woman from one of their ribs, A woman does not emerge from a man's ribs, not ever! it is he who emerges from her womb, like a fish rising from depths of water

and like streams that branch away from a river It's he who circles the sun of her eyes and imagines he is fixed in place.."

- Nizar Qabbani

Let the coffee cool...

Don't answer the phone.

Put both hands in your pocket.

Watch the opportunities pass by.

Let anxiety take what it takes from you.

Get close to what you fear.

accept the fact that not everything is necessarily going to be okay, and that you don't mind it anyway, nothing matters now.

Don’t juggle the weather with clothes.

Never buy an umbrella for sun or rain.

shorten your words.

Make sure that everything that is likely to break, already broken.

After trying every possible defeat.

You will return with a heart that has experienced disappointment, and no longer fears it, with a face that has had a moment of bruises, you will feel for the first time real courage, you will proceed undisturbed, and you will sleep peacefully at night.

- Farid Emara

We are accused of terrorism

We are accused of terrorism If we dare to write about the remains of a homeland That is scattered in pieces and in decay In decadence and disarray About a homeland that is searching for a place And about a nation that no longer has a face

About a homeland that has nothing left of its great ancient verse But that of wailing and eulogy

About a homeland that has nothing in its horizons Of freedoms of different types and ideology

About a homeland that forbids us from buying a newspaper Or listen to anything About a homeland where all birds are always not allowed to sing About a homeland that out of horror, its writers are using invisible ink

About a homeland that resembles poetry in our country Improvised, imported, loose and of no boundaries Of foreign tongue and soul Detached from Man and Land, ignoring their plight as a whole

About a homeland to the negotiating table moves Without a dignity or shoes

About a homeland That no more has steadfast men With only women therein

Bitterness is in our mouthsin our talkin our eyes Will draught also plague our souls as a legacy passed to us from ancient times?

Our nation has nobody left, even the less glorified No one to say "NO" in the face of those who gave up our homebread and butter Turning our colorful history into a circus

We have not a single honest poem That has not lost its virginity in a ruler's Harem

We grew accustomed to humiliation Then what is left of Man If he is comfortable with that?

I search the books of history For men of greatness to deliver us from darkness To save our women from fires' brutality

I search for men of yesterday But all I find is frightened cats Fearing for their souls From the authority of rats

Are we hit by national blindness Or are we suffering from color blindness

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse to perish Under Israeli tyranny That is hampering our unity Our history Our Bible and our Quran Our prophets' land If that is our sin and crime Then terrorism is fine

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse to be wiped out By barbarians, the Mongols or the Jews If we choose to stone the fragile security council Which was sacked by the king of caesuras

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse to negotiate the wolf And reach out for a whore

America is fighting the cultures of Man Because it lacks one And against the civilizations because it needs one It is a gigantic structure but without a wall

We are accused of terrorism If we refuse current times Where America  the arrogant the mighty the rich Became a sworn interpreter of Hebrew.

-Nizar Qabbani

A Night Beneath the Palm’s Shadow

The wind hums secrets through the date-laden trees, whispering names of those who once walked this dust, where footprints fade but never truly leave, pressed deep in the memory of the earth’s quiet trust.

Oh, moon of longing, hung low and bright, do you still remember the songs we sang? Verses embroidered in the fabric of night, soft as jasmine, where old echoes hang.

A mother calls, her voice a prayer, threading through the hush of dawn, her hands—cracked, but full of care— building futures from threads long gone.

And here I stand, between past and now, a daughter of sand, of stars, of sea, asking the wind to teach me how to love, to lose, yet still be free.

The color orange and the sunset, The rope and suicide, The glass and the wound, The ocean and drowning, Autumn and farewell, The mirror and me, The windows and staring, The hand waving from afar, The road and the sudden encounter.

Paintings by: Lili Wood