Amel Moussa
Five Poems
Creatures on the Inside
Inside every woman, there is a man.
Inside every man, there is a woman.
Inside every language, there is the female and the male.
Inside every lover, there is a god.
Inside every sinner, there is an innocent.
Inside every poet, there is a prophet.
Inside every prophet, there is a creator and a created.
Below, there is a sleeping animal.
Above, there is a caliph sitting cross-legged.
So, who are all those
stirring outside?
The First Life
In the countries
in whose lands roses thrive
while their creatures dwindle in number,
the people weep during the holiday seasons.
Roses remind them of those who have passed on,
and how each one's blood returned to its first life
as a rose.
Translated by Khaled al-Masri
Desires of a Mad Mind
Whenever these feet dance my memory besieges me and pants ahead of me demanding my dowry
VOLUME 4 | 2011 | SPECIAL ISSUE
Amel Moussa
[9o]
but my dowry is a poem:
the impossible head of death.
On every journey I lose my ring; the sapphire stone falls
In every migration solitude bites my nails, and I return crawling. My knees carry me toward my island. I ask the sailor for my ring. I search in houses for a pillow that holds my mind's desires.
Love Me
I carry me on my fingertips. I carry me on the galloping of my vision. I wrap myself with a swaddling of my skin. I embrace me with longing for myself. I bless my flowing, my gushing. I cradle me in my chest. I glove these budding hands with poetry.
I claim revelation, my engravings are on stone. My image carries water to thirst, and bait to fishermen's nets. I spend the tolling of evening bells sculpting.
I sleep in my own shade. I wear my Bedouin nature to spite cities.
IJEMS
Amel Moussa
I stroll within me when I weary myself. I enter a garden
that does not entice myself against me.
Water did not rush our way burning with the ferocity of thirst.
Why does water follow in my tracks and forget its channels and its flood plains?
Why do I not rest my face at the edge of the water to know
how it hid its colour from us, how we made it lose its scent?
Why do I not become the secret of water? Why do I not become female to its male, and wait for him in the jug until summer arrives.
Translated by Khaled Mattawa
I love my impossible self, the one whose feet the earth does not know.
[9i]
VOLUME 4 | 2011 | SPECIAL ISSUE