I've decided that from time to
time I will also post the poetry of others I admire and songs inspired
by poems, have this blog with my poetry, but not always about me and my poetry. One of my favorite poets is the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani. I discovered his poetry completely by accident because of the video below by Iraqi singer Kazem al Saher. I loved the lyrics to this song so much that I later ordered a copy of Qabbani's poems from Amazon.
The lyrics to this love song are Arabic with English subtitles. I wish I knew Arabic because I know I'm missing out on the true richness in meaning being that it's in English.
Nizar Qabbani is one of the greatest modern poets of the Middle East. He was a diplomat and writer. If he were still alive I wonder what he would think of the so-called Arab Spring and the horrors that are now occurring in his homeland. I enjoy listening to what eloquent and truly knowledgeably people have to say.
Please don't overlook my three most recent poems below.
It was before the pale rider came, before my culture was smashed, spat upon and lied upon when black meant wisdom, light, and truth and the element of things was not reversed and bastardized.
It was before we were kidnapped and chained.
It was before someone wrote we were only three fifths human on what was called one of the greatest documents the world had ever known.
It was before it was thought the entire world must go only one way, before the power of selfishness and the belief in only the individual mattered. We were a proud tribe then before this alien belief system.
It was before me and my sisters were called ugly and overlooked and there was only one standard of beauty.
It was before real men who loved and protected their women and children were emasculated into weaklings and brutes.
It was before we were not allowed to be real warrior women bathed in the diamonds, wisdom and truth of our continent, our weapons not visible instruments of death, but mental weaponry, for the best weapons against evil and the crooked is the mind.
It was before my sisters and I were told we could not go down to the crystal river in our high headdresses and beautiful and bright dresses to listen and wait for, welcome the captive prince whom we had just learned was freed.
It was before that pale peculiar rider came from the far cold north.
It was all before, and I will always remember since I am here now exiled from my beloved, from Africa. I will get on my horse to go now and free the new captive prince whom I love before it is too late.
There is a person connected to my family who burst into our home one day prior to my trip; burst in for ten in minutes to insult me, but she saw it as good advice since the voices in her head whispered we are from God. This person talks and sees things not there, applying her faults to others, cataloging all hurts legibly in her memory, placing stumbling blocks and hypocrisy before herself which she trips over like all the blind who leave their own backyards in disarray. I pity this person at the heart of it all. It is your duty and your distortions which the sun sets on, my dear, whereas the truth and what is right is my duty in the final context.
William Carlos Williams was an American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for some of his work posthumously.
He called her the gentle negress. Was she once imagination's figment or a secret lover before she was born like a butterfly in the poet's notebook, she with a low and gentle voice, surprised that he who was pale could find her lovely and would bother to search her eyes? Negress was an okay term in those days for Williams' soul flowed into infinity in 1963. People think I am hard and strong, but like the gentle negress I too am gentle, melancholy at times and was once loved by a vaguely pale peculiarly auburn haired Turk who too found me lovely, and I was surprised.
Once I sat and watched a sea blue like lapis lazuli undulating scarves in a breeze pinned to ancient clotheslines; my mind expansive and quiet in a far far country.
And these are the times we live in. These times we have seen before.
Two little children at night; Their gowns floating in the breeze. The smell of smoke, of sulfur, un-confessed poisons.
Red flashes in the distance behind them. They hold hands; one little more than a toddler. His little nose runs, saliva of fear and sadness in his throat. His sister leads him across a field.
Their young parents lie in the eternal sleep. They remember an old couple, their only son and daughter killed as hell's engines leveled first their son's home then the daughter's.
And these are the times we live in. These times we have seen before.
Ancient pained land that drifted through many pains; this the most current.
The two little children remember the smiles of the old couple, once winked at them. The old man pinched their cheeks, an apple for both. Their young parents smiled, nodded. Happier times, before the invader.
They came to the old couple's door, the man-made thunder recedes. Dawn cuts a few slits in the sky. The old man opens the door, wife behind him peering over his shoulder. They are taken in.
Days later, the old couple decide to steal away with their new treasure. They move along a road with many others to another land with hopes, dreams of peace in their hearts.
And these are the times we live in. These times we have seen before.
