Translated into English by
Mohammed Alkhozai

*

Revised by
Kamal Abu-Deeb
and
Riham Abu-Deeb

"Speak to them only in symbols
That is a blessing for them
And a compassion for you."

1

The sorceress woke me up.
She drew her symbol for me
And made me drink her wine.
Whenever I sleep, I behold her
Sleepless around my letter.

2

I implore you, oh, blueness of slumber lead me astray.
Let desire be a lantern for my steps.
Set my soul ablaze
And with it, prevail over my body.
Take my heart in the direction of labour.
Unleash volcanoes in my blood,
Lest I lose my alertness,
And sit at a table,
And let a chair hold me,
And the comfort of wisdom overcome me.

3

The blue genie stood me in compassion and said:
“ I heard you before seeing you,
And beheld you before meeting you.
I loved you before coming across you,
And I ended with you before your beginning.
I got drunk on you before your wine.
And that suffices.”

4

She stood me and said to me:
“ Words are not in books,
Words are in people.”

5

She stood me in the numeral and said:
“They count you in different ways,
One by what is manifest,
Two by what is hidden.
The letter and the script
And the alchemy of precious metals.
Take turns with you.
A single person in the Ruq’a (1)
And the Naskh
And the Thuluth.
Your ink is your war.
Your ink is your love.
Your ink is your wide door
To which people make the pilgrimage.
An ink which makes the truth glow .”

6

You drew maps for me to lose my way.
You placed love on my heart,
To make me infatuated.
You became my path,
And opened in the grave a door to life.
How am I to name myself for you
Without forgetfulness, without being overcome by the void?

7

The blue genie stood me and said:
“ You refine writing with experience
Like a river that adorns a mountain.
A river of blood gushes from books.
A river which overflows and runs into the annals of the slain.
You read your heritage
Like someone recalling texts in the presence of a dream
O n the verge of escaping.
And in that, there is neither significance nor wisdom .”

8

The heart sobs in you,
Thus attaining joy,
While you wash the shirt which encompasses the entire universe
A shirt, which inherits knowledge and toil
A shirt which fuses with a body that
Beholds ...and waits.

9

She stood me in the chant and said:
“They lead the city with a herd of mules.
Your chant is borne by the larynxes of the choir,
And the chests of hearts.
They save light for the moment of darkness,
meteors for the orbiting cosmos,
And prayers for the joy of the king.
So rest assured and feel no sorrow,
Your luminous day is coming.
You sit in the jewel of the crown,
Your book is your throne
And your heart is your wedding,
And the paradise of people is your ambling space.”

10

She stood me in the distance and said:
“ A stone is born from you,
Which assumes the nature of feathers,
And fills the distance with the lamentation of angels,
Becoming incarnate in the desire of the air,
Fluttering with wings
And flying, emulating language.”

11

She stood me in the veins of books
And reproached in me the certainties of beasts.
Thus I saw a little anxiety
Awakening and dying.

12

She stood me in the vehemence of fire and said:
“ You measure archipelagos with your body limb by limb,
And test a bridge by those who cross it,
Tripping over words growing like plants,
Passengers who are lighter than birds,
And in supplication that is deeper than fondness.”

13

You, blue genie, imprison the creature in the blueness of night
And charge his heart with dreams.
Like you, the glass of God
Seeks oil and saffron,
Thus, you no longer have slumber or darkness.

14

She stood me in the loss and said:
“Learn that it will take you to the galaxies.
And learn that you will not return.
Learn, too, that
One can never encounter such infatuation twice.
Your friend is your heart, follow it.
Neither questioning nor disobeying .”

15

The blue genie stood me in the vision and said to me:
“ Speak to them only in symbols,
In that there is a blessing for them
And mercy for you.”

16

She stood me and said:
“Recount your tidings to them.
They cove their faces with their palms in shyness,
And feel no shame.
Thus, you do not fall into ignorance,
And they do not know.”

17

I beseech you in the name of the anxiety of alchemy,
And the tenacity of lexicons.
I implore you in the name of fondness that devours the heart,
Do not place a letter over another before the awakening of the stone
And the translation of the distance,
A stone which shares the nature of humans,
And the desire of physics.
Its trespasses we forgive, and to it, glory strives.

18

Like language, you reveal in symbols,
Because letters are unveiled for you.
You don shirts and shed allusions.
You mislead writing with the signs of clouds,
Thus, none but I attain your blue gold.

19

She roamed with me all night, driving her royal chariot,
Illuminating the darkness of the city,
As if awakening the dream with the rose of the heart,
One hand in the milk of arms
Another in the silkiness of the dream,
Proclaiming love to the people.
Driving the world towards the house of madness,
She guides the galaxy and boasts of her adventure,
Surpassing the guardians of countries and the borders of regions.
I was the companion of the Queen
When she granted the rose of slumber to the night.

20

She Takes me on a risky trip from which there is no escape,
I hear the gods eulogizing her kindness to the universe,
While it is leaning over, staggering and rejoicing.
I who belong to her and she who belongs to me.

21

She gazes at me,
And I turn into a wave that forgets the habit of water
And marries voyaging,
A genie disguised in the shape of a tree,
She deceives forests and is good at raining.

22

I am but a lost dream
With no home or pillow.
A dream that dispatches its birds
To awaken its mates in the desolation of the universe.
People fail to understand this dream,
It is too obscure for them,
But the blueness of the night can comprehend it.

23

She stood me in the body and said:
“Leave your shirts in the breeze of the night,
They will reveal wandering souls
With which they will ascend the steps of the dream
Towards the bliss of interpretation.
Thus, they go naked, away from you,
And heading towards you.”

24

ِ?I asked you
Like a lighthouse that leads ships astray,
And guides the storm.
I praised the book for you
So that it accommodate your names
And listen to your dreams.
Children go to sleep in your wing
Forgetting all about time.
I foresaw the future for you
lest the motion of desire
or the theories of gender overlook you.
Come,
Astrologers will read you in my book.

25

Interpretation shields you in times of strife,
And meaning elects me to scandalize texts.
Had they comprehended the lexicon of significance,
Our blood would have gone amongst the tribes
Without being avenged.
They attain you,
And they assail you.

26

Do not believe that love has borders other than madness.
Do not believe that a prophet can resist the desire of the dream.
And do not believe that sunflowers
Ever existed before Van Gogh.

27

I do not see you by means of physics.
Nor do I rely on sight to ascertain that you are here.
Their knowledge does not thwart me from seeing you
In the flower of time,
Or the garden of place.

28

She blazes and silent I stay.
She ordains and I listen.
She enacts laws and I submit.
She sets the path and I walk.
She opens doors and I enter.
She refines books and I read.
She lays traps and I fall.
She scribes covenants and I obey.
She wakens charm and I dissolve.
She fills goblets and I get drunk.
That is not idle talk,
It is magic,
And she is the sorceress.

29

My blue genie stood me and said:
“This is a person who does not narrate, but he sees,
Like someone who grants precious stones a secret,
And overflows openly with paradise and its kins
And with hell.”

30

I sent her the notebooks
Which I had saved for the exhalation of the gods.
I implored her not to be late for the text.
Stammering with her song of songs,
She places love upon the heart,
And grants me the nature of the sea:
densely anxious,
Unfathomable,
And good at drowning.

31

She said:
“Learn,
You who have left this earth in light wood,
That the sea has eyes that lead to the heart,
Where no one is a person except in his text,
No one is ever truthful except there.
And learn
That you who have loosened for her the chariot of night,
Will not return from this enchanting loss.
Far away regions will corrode you,
And no one will ask after you.
And learn
That you will not be saved from traveling,
.Nor will you abandon writing
While you are in your emaciated wood,
Someone is furnishing the sea for you with teak ?and hard wood,
That you may not miss the wedding of the waves.”

32

She stood me in the name and said:
“ Your name has no equal,
And nobody reads your name but your Self.
Your death has innumerable names,
Names for you and names against you.
You take them and give them new names.
Things acquire their nature from your names.
For in naming is the secret of names.
?And if they tell you the name of a names,
You get close to interpretation.”

33

Your goblets are not made of glass,
For ecstasy is not in what you drink.
Ecstasy is in what you write.

34

She stood me in the leaf
And drew a cottage leaning against a tree.
The cottage had the awesomeness of oblivion,
And the tree had the desire of imagination.
She placed her water in the site of symbols and said:
“ Go as far as interpretation so I can read you the verse.
In every blank wherein, I place a drawing, life spreads.
And children flow around the tree,
Dancing tempestuously like a wedding lesson.
Delve into interpretation and return to me,
Then you know the door of speech and the abode of meaning.”

35

She stood me in the paradise of the dream and said:
“In your dream, you see baskets full of lanterns,
So, do not exit alone from slumber.
Bring your dreams along with you.
They go utterly mad in the presence of the dream,
And you catch love, thus get cured.”

36

She stood me in the experience and said:
“I only appear at night,
I ascend to nothing but a throne,
I stand by nothing but justice,
I reveal myself to nobody but a prophet,
I bear witness to nothing but love,
I go nowhere but to a wedding,
I read nothing but your verse,
I know no name but yours,
I dress for nobody but you,
I never undress but with you,
I do not rejoice but for you,
I never grieve but over you,
I hear no voice but yours,
I write nothing but your revelation,
I understand nothing but your text,
I enter no home but your home,
And I lay in no bed but yours,
??Nothing keeps me warm but your arms,
And nothing intoxicates me but your wine,
And I drink nothing but your nectar,
And nobody can wake my butterfly but you,
No one can take me but you,
And nobody shares me with you.”

37

ٍShe stood me in yellow flowers and said:
“ I go in your blue shirt,
Like a star in the upheaval of creation.”

38

She stood me in the duel and said:
“Let not negligence take your heart away from the letter.
Be vigilant like an unarmed warrior,
For I love only gallant knights”

39

The heart in love is a sun upon night,
A blue fire that glowed with the joy of revelation,
So words overflowed in the bowl of dough,
And the body fell short of the soul.
Love in the heart is darkness that polishes the moon.

40

She stood me in clouds and said:
“You write me with the transparency of yearning,
You erase me with the density of fondness.
The more you reveal me in symbols,
The more you conceal me in allusions.”

41

“The letter is like love,
There is no way of escaping it, except by proclaiming it,
No way of curing it, except by demonstrating it,
And no way of departing from it except by coming to it,
And no way of winning it except by losing it,
And it has no whiteness except in its colours.
The letter is not love except in its title.”

42

She stood me in the tree of meaning and said:
”You will not behold me as I behold you.
Vision is not in the E.
Vision is in the H.
You will not witness me as I witness you.
Martyrdom is not in surviving,
Martyrdom is in perishing.
You will not place me on a wound the way I place you.
Balsam is not in healing,
Balsam is in the wound.
If they place the Sun in your right hand
And the Moon in your left
In order to reveal,
Reveal not the interpretation, Tell them only the meaning.”

43

She stood me in the iris of work and said:
“I test you with my particularity,
Lest you neglect your generality.
And I push you into grave perils,
With guides who swing you in lanterns
Lest you miss the errors. (2)
I place you upon the wound of people,
Lest you overlook the imploring hearts.
With you I test the distance,
So you can burnish precious stones with your heart.
I grant you my blueness to glorify it with gold.
You are my first creator.
You are my own and my soul mate,
And the dangling thread in the trail of my robe.
Call me by whatever name you desire
That will please and delight me.”

44

She stood me in her azurite and said to me:
“You will stay sleepless under my balcony,
Place your fire in the feathers of my pillows,
Awaken the birds sleeping in my throat,
And touch me with snow in the veins.
You believe that you know,
And prematurely reach climax.
Thus, you speak of love,
And heave and become besotted.
And you believe that you know,
And prematurely desire.
You rejoice and fall sick and shudder,
And you believe that you know,
And prematurely tremble.
So you are invigorated and you shake and rampage,
And you believe that you know.
Then a cold fire invades you.
It devours you then you know.
It obliterates you then you know.
It dissolves you then you know.
And you doubt that you know,
Thus, you know.”

45

I said to her:
“Whence can one reach you?” But she took no notice.
I said to her:
“How can one reach you?” But she did not care.
I said to her:
“What path other than you can a lover take?”
But she did not turn.
I said to her: “What door?”
But she placed me as a glass on her lap,
And lulled me like a baby.
And when I was about to fade away,
She opened for me the blueness of a notebook and read:
“I am the door of the word,
So praise the one you adore by the one you love .”

46

She stood me in the waters of desire and said:
“They go to sleep so as to attain the pleasure of dreaming
And you are in the bliss of slumber and awakening.
The Word is your home and resting place,
So write to me, I read to you.
My butterfly is yours and your fire is mine.
We share the dream and the word and the rose of physics.”

47

She stood me in the glass of night and said:
“Your reed is the mouth of a baby at feeding,
And your ink is the nectar of a fresh nipple.
No sooner do you drink your fill than you draw
The bow of the word,
And the earring swings like a crescent moon.
Have mercy on the script,
It gasps for you, it exalts itself.
And grants you glory .”

48

She placed me in captivity and said:
“The beasts of the wild feel at ease with you,
So, listen to their footsteps,
And let the light of their glass of sorrow
Illuminate your way.
Pair your self with the beast,
And do not reproach it at the water.”

49

She opens for me the notebooks of the soul and reads:
“ I announce you to all creatures,
And I recommended you to God.
You are not a prophet,
But no one can touch you.
And interpretation has no way into you.
Your status is in your place.
Your land is in your contentment,
And your peace is in your forgetfulness.
Your sky is in your solace,
And your meaning is in your title.
Never believe what is said,
Lest you be ignorant. ”

50

She placed me in wind rush and said:
“Life is not in residing,
Life is in traveling. ”

51

“Oh, you besotted fire”, I said.
“Oh, you bread bin of language and index of hell,
It is time for the soul to desire,
To dissolve.
It is time to blow.
Oh, fire,
No letter ever emerges from an alphabet
Without being scented in saffron rubbed by my fingers.
Letters are not letters,
They are the henna of desire,
On foreheads, in buttonholes and in the yearning of infatuation.
And language is nothing but the ember,

52

She stood me in her doorway and said:
“If you knock, I shall not open.
If I open, you will not enter.
If you enter, you will not reach.
If you reach, you will not know.
If you know, you will not comprehend.
If you comprehend, you will not attain.
If you attain, I shall not be.
None of these doors leads you to me.
I am your door to you,
And you are my door to me.
So, decide where to go,
And with what word you open.
As for me, I have already chosen.”

53

Some white squirrels,
Disguising themselves in the appearance of white squirrels like       them,
Jump from the branch of the body to the tree of the soul.
Their shirts run around and trot with them,
They exchange roles with nature,
And claim to be squirrels.
Night talk
Between the soul and the body
Is a distance measurable by the bliss of slumber.

54

She stood me in the calligraphers and said:
“This is not the alphabet,
It is the garden of disease.
And you are the doctor of letters.
You aid the ailing,
And treat with your reed the slanting letters.
And the alphabet is towering letters like the alif.
You perform your miracle,
And for every letter you forge an alif
For a lover to lean on,
And with which to enter the door of eternity.
So let language be the house of your madness.”

55

When he was about to reside,
He rose like a wing aiding a bird
Saying to the place:
“You are but a grave.”
Then delved into the clay of adventure, quavering:
“Take me, oh, sorceress,
In a direction unknown to footsteps,
Glorified by the path.
The place is no echelon for me,
And time is shortened by residing.”

56

She stood me in the quavering and said:
“I waited for you,
I gave you advice, commended you and recommended you.
I sipped your absence,
For it is the end of the yarn in waiting for you.
What are you after when you are late?
What is it you want when you scorn me?
What am I to do, when your distance is prolonged ?
If infatuation overflows and desire overwhelms me?
I waited for you in the paleness of the dress,
Split open for you on either side,
To pervade me like an inferno,
Then I would lift the wing for you to enter, Pretend to be a dream and enter,
Take me by my shirts and enter,
Bare my sun with your night and enter.
I ask you not to write with me in your languages.
But you so overdo the inscribing of your letters on my body,
That I hear the etching of the reeds in the bones of my soul.
What do you want of me?”

57

The blue genie stood me and sobbed me out:
“I implore you by the stars
Which you placed in my eyes,
And with which you adorned my sky.
I implore you by the night that we guarded together,
And for which we prepared the sun as a chamber.
I implore you by the beautiful sobbing
That I poured over your shoulder
Under the barrage of time.
I implore you by the heaving
That I prayed in your chest,
Feeling secure, driving ecstasy away by you,
And guarding against being entangled from you.
I implore you by the she-wolf in you,
And the fortune of the desolate baby girl in my soul.
I implore you by the grandchildren who are to come,
And kiss you on the throat
And kill you for me.
I implore you
Leave me not… leave me not.