What words coming to life look like…

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I am at a loss for words. Truly. Only a few months ago you were in Amman. And I waited amidst the swarms of people just to see a glimpse of you, or hear a single syllable from one of your poems.
Your words transcended everything. Everything. God rest your beautiful soul. We are all […]

In the state of siege, time becomes space
Transfixed in its eternity
In the state of siege, space becomes time
That has missed its yesterday and its tomorrow…
The siege will last in order to convince us we must choose
an enslavement that does no harm, in fullest liberty!
- Under Siege by Mahmoud Darwish
Gaza is still under siege
Mahmoud Darwish […]

I.
I learned to whistle our bloody history through my teeth
Painted our folklore on the harsh canvas walls of caves
To remember the biographies of a continent
That screamed to the colonialist
This is the way we dance
These are our truths
Yes, every winter we ate clementines
And in the fall we picked the olives
Pressed the oil beneath our nails for […]

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them,
“Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud;
Otherwise,
Someone would call the cops.
Still
Though,
Think about this,
This great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one
Who lives with a full moon in each eye
That is always saying,
With
that
sweet
moon
language,
What every other eye in this world
Is dying
To hear.
- Hafiz

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What a skilled man can do with a hammer
The advanced pilgram can do with
Thought.
One builds their own seat in this world
Using God -
The only material
That is
E
v
e
r
y
w
h
e
r
e
.
- Hafiz

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Let your
Intelligence begin to rule
Whenever you sit with others
Using this sane idea:
Leave all your cocked guns in a field
Far from us,
One of those damn things
Might
Go
Off.
- Hafiz

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As a 24 year old male, this is probably going to make me sound like a big wimp, but I don’t care, because Suheir Hammad’s poems seem to be the only thing that have the ability to draw a tear from my eye these days. Of course, I will immediately pretend something is caught in […]