#Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika

[majestativa]

Yes, my sweetheart. The sea alters its colors. [...] It sometimes drinks the sunset’s blood.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

I dream, I dream, but do not wake Except to dream another dream.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

Love and torment said to me: “Take us, we are twins. Two lost wounds, Or two violin chords. So dress us with songs, cover us with kisses. And lodge us in the lost eternity in the eyes of silence.”

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

O labyrinth that turned fertile and moonlit in darkness. O the pining of lover, dreaming in the dark.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

She is the daughter of seclusion, Art, and sublime beauty.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

And let your softness be my cradle.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

My soul is in a stormy flame. A thirst for life fills my senses.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

Their kisses wound like a dagger.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

What does the river say? An anthem From Babylon, elate with incense-odor, The monks’ procession, in a temple That the Tigris and rocks hide its secret. Memoirs of the night and the sun, (The sun city) behind the ages, Of Hammurabi and his love, And what was covered by the treacherous book of Time.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

Every dawn that passed here, with gloom and yearning, Is the phantom of mortal exile. In the said northern mountains, The phantom of mortal loneliness.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

You dream, my poetess […] Forever at the unknown horizon you stare.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

Beyond the obscure dark, Is the voice of our beloved, in the deep dark, Pulsing with deep yearning. Their voice is laden with gentle reproach.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

But she is […] Time’s riddle.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

Oh, wound dusk, Oh, lightning fog. My guardian angel? Or my devil? Oh his distant face, and enemy are you or a friend? You flourish in my being, As death, a river of sunny nectar. Oh, my dusk, Oh, taste of time.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

The light that violates the eyes inflames them, Leaving them no vision, giving the soul what it gives: Ray of light, a brilliant stretch of colors, is fire. Eternity dozed in its waves, and Time slept.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)

[majestativa]

His smile is fields of fragrance, [...] It sweetens me, decorates me, crowns me On the kingdom of illusion And in the courts of dream. . . A princess.

— Nazik Al-Malaika, Listen to the Mourners: The Essential Poems of Nazik Al-Malaika, transl by Abdulwahid Lu'lu'a, (2021)