Nouri al Jarrah Poems

To have gone back to Damascus
to have been able to.
To have left England,
to have opened a door in winter
...

Had I known that I was beginning at the end
and the playful yellow
of the trees
...

Not a night passes by without this glare rising, the abducted brilliance of my life;
without pavements forgetting me
and a train taking me again to the cemetery.
...

My words are dying.
Bringing them water,
I arrive to find them dead -
...

The denouement... but above and behind,
our retreat
saw in the last trail of summer
the spectre of a smile,
...

I desire light,
sleeplessness fills my eyes.
I am the remnant in a grave,
a wafted chrysalis -
...

Her arm on the bed...
The open window bright on her arm,
colour undulates in light,
door and chair are witness
...