مو جاي عبالي/ muu jey 3a bali (I have no heart for anything good)
The embers rain down on my country
I look for a sheet of paper to write this poem on
In Damascus the mosques are still lit
The sun has dug its own grave

3ala mahlak/على مهلك (take your time)
When you understand that the sky cannot live without clean air,
I’ll be waiting for you in front of the Umayyad Mosque
And if an old woman caresses your red cheek
It is because I took the shape of a beggar

I’ve searched all this life for a بنت الحلال/ bint elhalal (a good girl)
Until I met her gaze near a stall of candied fruit
A beggar was licking the white dust from the ground
The night stars dried
When their light burnt my soul

بلا زناخة/bala zanaa5a (stop your bullshit)
I’m lying in a ruined palace
A rail of coke, my lips are dry
The night falls like a bird hit by a hunter’s bullet
On Damascus intoxicated by roses and drugs

تضرب انت/ tudrub enta (go to hell)
You for whom I sprinkled my sincerity with gasoline
I threw a tangerine from Uzbekistan
On the golden brocade of the lake of my hopes
The water of my thoughts has swallowed up my heart

حل عني/ hail 3ani (get out! )
I’ve seen your face three hundred days too long
I spit blood and sugar on the pavements
The street of King Faisal has given asylum to an assassin
And I walk without knowing where I’m going

I’ve gone to dip my sorrows in the pool of a مزرعة/ mazra2a (cottage)
The forest stands like a thinned out army
The sun has forgotten me since I am nothing to you
I will drown in the turquoise water
Wrapped in the milky silk of the pool