#mohab nasr

[doha-doha]

قبالة البحر كانا يتبادلان اللكمات الركل شتائم العائلات وما يدور في الفراش أو يُعتقَد أنه يحدث. في شارع جانبي كانت الريح أعتى ورذاذ يترك على شفاهنا ملوحة فنضحك، نسمع ونضحك، مترنحين من رصيف إلى آخر كأننا مصابان بالدوار الناس هنا كلهم مثلنا صدقيني مصابون بالجنون ربما لأن البحر بعيد جدًا بطريقة مهينة نسمع فقط بالأمواج إننا نتخيل وهذا ما يجعل أجسامنا حساسة للريح كالقلوع وعظامنا تئن مثل صارية يضربها الموج لا شيء حقيقي وهذا ما كان يضحكنا والملح على شفاهنا أرأيت؟ نحن محبوسون في كتاب عن البحر أما البحر نفسه فبعيد جدًا.

مهاب نصر، لا توقظ الشعب يا حبيبي

[arablit]

New Poems by Saniyah Saleh, Mohab Nasr, Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine in 'Seedings'

New Poems by Saniyah Saleh, Mohab Nasr, Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine in ‘Seedings’

In the new issue of Seedings magazine, if you haven’t yet seen it, you will find translations of work by Syrian poet Saniyah Saleh, Egyptian poet Mohab Nasr, and Moroccan poet Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine:

The magazine also includes a gallery of artwork by Kuwaiti artist Omar al-Nakib.

The issue has perhaps the most of Saniya Saleh’s work that has ever appeared, in translation, in one place.…

[finita--la--commedia]

I don’t know what to make of this word, though I cross the distance between my bedroom and the kitchen without feeling it at all.

Mohab Nasr, from “Society”, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger

[finita-la-commedia]

We knew a man who’d say That he had friends in every corner of the world. But we did not know What he meant by world.

Mohab Nasr (translated from the Arabic by  Robin Moger)

[finita--la--commedia]

Please, God, give us books to read: books that smell of glue, their pages like knives; books that cough out dust in our faces so that we realise our life is a cemetery; ... because we too are books, God, flailing blind in our bed of love— aw, aw— because we are squeezed in on Your bookshelf looking on Your miracles: angels on the wall, losing gamblers tearing up their bonds; the despair of hands that strike and hands that sleep, hurt, on the same pages.

Mohab Nasr, from “God, give us books to read”, translated from the Arabic by Youssef Rakha  

[arablit]

Friday Finds: Mohab Nasr’s ‘Society’ This poem appears both at Robin Moger's QisasUkhra and Youssef Rakha's Sultan's Seal. The translation is Moger's: