Under A Strange Sky Poem by Adnan al-Sayegh

A difficult equation
To divide yourself between two girls
Between two countries
Of police and pineapples
Between the two, you cling to a bottle
In a bar, with cockroaches leaping about.
Once you had the words, your path to the palm trees
From where did they come with their walls ?
You turned aside to watch
The light of the distant masts
Rising and falling
Between the sobs and the sighs.
A bitter equation
To remain as you are,
Tossed upon the sand
Sketching a horizon, then erasing it
a flash of lightning, then removing it.
The near sky is more desirable
The distant sky … more beautiful
But the guards' boots
Will bar you from the realm of nostalgia which twines
between the blossoms of your heart and the window.
A difficult equation
To exchange a dream for an illusion,
A woman for another
An exile for an exile.
And I ask :
Where is the path ?!