Saadi Youssef

When I enter the earth's nest
Contented
And glad,
My wings resting,
...

At last in a half-furnished room near Nicosia
you came to deliver peace on your lips.
Is it only now, after five thousand miles,
that you've found the words?
...

God save America
My home sweet home!
The French general who raised his tricolour
over Nagrat al-Salman where I was a prisoner thirty years ago . . .
...

How will I drag my feet to her now?
In which land will I see her
and on which street of what city
should I ask about her?
...

His house was exposed to dust from the street.
His garden, blooming with red carnations,
was open to dogs
and strange insects,
...

Winds that do not blow in the evening,
and winds that do not blow at dawn
have burdened me with a book of boughs.
I see my cry in the silence.
...

We stopped in five stations and did not leave a souvenir.
We did not shiver there, or get drunk, or strum a guitar.
Five rivers of sand on the guitar.
Five crosses made of silence:
...

She comes to me with a bowl of soup
when I am besieged by
fumes
of cheap arak.
...

It is not far than a night oblivious look
From the opening of " Umm Khaled " meadow.
You see it, at night, drenched in its blood.
Beit Leed Cabaret was your hidden bar of sand and turtle shield,
...

The girl who works in the warehouse
leaves her second-floor room.
She switches on the staircase light,
her face agitated in the glow,
...

Dream 1
On nights of torment and sorrow
its waters saturate the pillow
and it comes like the smell of moss
...

This Iraq will reach the ends of the graveyard.
It will bury its sons in open country
generation after generation,
and it will forgive its despot . . . .
...

That was not a country.
But it had all it needed
To imprint its image on us,
We the children of impossible clay.
...

Hold me, comfort me
The stones are nothing but pain tonight
Hold me to your breast
so that I ramble:
...

We did not name it so that it would become a city.
We came to it thirsty
starved
limping on blazing sands,
...

The trench with green water
is criss-crossed by twigs and birds,
by the shoes of tourists
and the ghosts of shipwrecked sailors . . .
...

A Roman Colony
We were Greeks
Our dwellings on the borders
Of the Arabian Desert;
...

The house plant
Bends under the heavy air.
On the table
Among a full ashtray and a tobacco bag
...

Soon
all the rooms will be closed,
and beginning with the basement,
we will leave them
...

A moment after midnight
every night
jazz begins to soak the Jazz Corner
like new wine
...