The Poetry Corner

Your Body Is My Map

By Nizar Qabbani

raise me more love... raise me my prettiest fits of madness O daggers journey... in my flesh and knifes plunge... sink me further my lady... the sea calls me add to me more death ... perhaps as death slays me... Im revived your body is my map... the world's map no longer concerns me... I am the oldest capital of sadness... and my wound a Pharaonic engraving my pain.... extends like an oil patch from Beirut... to China... my pain... a caravan...dispatched by the Caliphs of "AChaam"... to China... in the seventh century of the "Birth"... and lost in a dragons mouth... bird of my heart... "naysani" O sand of the sea, and forests of olives O taste of snow, and taste of fire... my heathen flavor, and insight I feel scared of the unknown... shelter me I feel scared of the darkness... embrace me I feel cold... cover me up tell me children stories... rest beside me... Chant to me... since from the start of creation Ive been searching for a homeland to my forehead... for a womans hair... that writes me on the walls... then erases me... for a womans love... to take me to the borders of the sun... and throws me... from a womans lip... as she makes me like dust of powdered gold... shine of my life. my fan my lantern. declaration of my orchards stretch me a bridge with the scent of oranges... and place me like an ivory comb... in the darkness of your hair... then forget me I am a drop of water... ambivalent remaining in the notebook of October your love crushes me... like a mad horse from the Caucasus throwing me under its hoofs... and gargles with the water of my eyes... add to me more fury... add to me O prettiest fits of my madness for your sake I set free my women and effaced my birth certificate and cut all my arteries...