Poem 027, Sonnet 10: Having Naught, Having All! Poem by Samer Madbak

There was a time when I in ignorance
Did contemplate the status of my peers
Oft with a feeling of incompetence
Or else with envy or in yellow tears.

So that wherev’r I’d go, I would behold
Outstanding men of power and estate
Then would my sorrows grow a thousandfold
Seeing their wealth and my penurious state.

But when I swapped my yen with holy phlegm
And probed my bankrupt spirit once again
I found in it my bliss, my diadem
The destitution of my fellowmen.

'Twas then the resurrection of my soul
Which, having nihil, waxed possessing all!


Beirut
April 26th 1988