Winter passes and no sun shines for Homs.
Classroom desks have no role
ending as firewood for refugees camped at the school.

The busy roads have gone to sleep.
Lampposts suck in their light for a bereft mother to slip
into a funeral procession for her son and his father.

Why do you pass through Aleppo
before asking your Lord’s permission,
you, massacre?

Abu-Tayyeb al-Mutanabbi is phoning me.
He’s charged his mobile after a long power cut
–there’s usually no electricity here–
to talk about his dying citadel.

Abu-Tayyeb al-Mutanabbi on the line mocks
the pedigree of the bigshots of his nation, and says:
Wait for my apology in the epic poem to come.

Our Arab pride is just shrapnel on the roads.
What you knew of its offspring has gone stale,
so, Abu-Tayyeb al-Mutanabbi, do not bother with
inspiration in the afterlife.

Let’s piss where we once sang
the glory that left prematurely. Ignominy, if you
or I aimed like the West
for turmoil.

This land has reason for shame:
Palestine was called Palestine,
now it’s called our cause postponed.

Never before did I end a poem with such pessimism.
Do not allow poetry to sleep
O Syria, in the morgue.

Revolt against a stolen revolution.
Never pay the surgeon with your crimson blood, never.
Open like Damascene jasmine, from nothing else
will our faded seasons return.

Syria, Syria, O Syria

I will not save you, our mother
I will save my country
that if you die, dies twice
every second.