He died when he realized that his legs had beaten him to the cemetery…

At university I tried to be

a member of a political group, I tried to be loving, funny…

I failed the day I heard, at a student demonstration,

that Egyptian planes were attacking Haifa,

the speaker was a member of Fatah.

That day ten martyrs fell

at Huwwara checkpoint south of Nablus,

I was running with them behind

a red 608 Mercedes truck,

which turned back upon getting the protestors to the checkpoint.

At the French Cultural Center,

after a discussion about intelligence agents and rebels on the streets,

and while the evening painted

the face of the city on the camp’s entrance,

Apache planes bombed a car carrying three fighters

of the Popular Front and Fatah.

Two were martyred while the third,

who was quickly rescued from the Subaru,

screaming that he was alive,

died when he realized that his legs

had beaten him to the cemetery.

 In those days I buried friends with my own hands,

prison cells were open and so were the cemeteries

and things were merging until everything turned

the same color,

so much that we thought

that the sun would rise in the West

Three Political Sociology Textbooks

A woman comes home from university.

Sitting amongst books and exam papers,

she does not think of going elsewhere.

A man sits in a cafe in the afternoon alone.

He has a phone and numbers of friends,

he does not think of calling them

or of going anywhere else.

There is no woman standing by a window

waving to returning men,

there is also no window.

There is no man thinking of throwing

himself in the sea,

there is also no sea.

Neither is there a different scenario, e.g.:

The man meets the woman returning from work with three sociology textbooks.

The woman returning from work

with three sociology textbooks

will continue to be pale.

The man sitting in the cafe will continue to be,

the man sitting in the cafe.

If the streets of this city were not overflowing

with lonely women and men who were hiding away,

other things would happen, e.g.: 

The man and the woman would share the same room. 

A Man Talks to Himself

Today for example, the grass was wet

and the dogs hadn’t yet left for their dens.

And the February rains were pushing winter

into the hills and I was thinking of you.

Actually, so much time has passed while I did nothing else,

Amr Diab released five albums at least,

my friend published three books and a novel,

and seasons of failed crops passed

and people migrated

And I still think you’re as real as God

And that I can assure you

that faith is two people’s ability to pretend

that they had a past.

But there is no past, no time,

nothing except two people,

one walking besides the other

believing that they are getting along,

thinking that they will walk on and keep talking,

talk that won’t end until emptied of lies.

One person was walking through the fields in the morning,

talking to himself.

In time,

in a den,

he is a dog.

A Man Alone Drives Around in a Car

A man alone drives around town in a Nissan Micra.

Then he goes home, a fish in one hand, bread in the other.

As soon as he walks through the door, he calls to his son,

he does not need to talk nor travel,

nor mention the garden wall, the pine-tree or the absence.

Within the wall the unemployed sit,

and under the deep-green pine tree, he sits with his son.

And while he prepares him to learn again

and while he teaches him how to drive,

they are overlooked by Russian and Ethiopian soldiers

and a frightened woman who urges him

to come in with the shopping list

and close the door behind him.

A man alone drives around in a car, searching for something lost to him,

the smoke of the world pours out of his lung,

he is searching for something lost to him!

A Woollen Coat

 With time, I learnt to ask for nothing, with time I learnt to be quiet.

When I need to talk, I talk to a Carob tree.

Under the tree, there are always four boys

eating breakfast with their father.

One of the sons was killed

while standing at a window in the camp.

From the day they became three sons and their father under the tree,

I have come to understand

writing as speaking the silence.

My pain is great, as he who has lost his son.

My pain is small, too small to speak of.

The day before yesterday, my sister bought me

a woollen jacket,

and I wrote this because I had to call out to you,

for who can now stand the silence?