Best Arab Poems

From Tripoli to Cairo
I saw the intifada leftover
After Tunisia and Yemen
Like a dam broken
After it had sucked life from dry sand
Morocco, Kuwait, Djibouti and Oman
I heard birds singing at the cliff
Falsetto dawn
In the rift valley of religion
And water pouring from each sweat
Flood the root of...

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A gigantic sail looms, above the sea,
Anchored by steel braces, of creativity,
Start of a journey, from an island beyond the surf,
Into the hour, of the twenty-first century turf.

High above the mast, the yard hangs free,
For ‘sailor guests’ to dine, in exclusivity,
They watch boats set sail,...

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It all began with a man who owns a cart,
And the Tunisian government took it away.
Now a martyr, having no idea what would start,
The Arab Spring began on that day,
Causing the Tunisian leader to give way.

The revolt then spread to neighboring Egypt.
Thousands gathering in Tahrir...

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On caparisoned, filleted camels do they 
Over the great, soft, tawny sands 
Ride;
Unfurled flags and tribal standards flown amidst them, 
In the very midst of them-
Of they, who astride great tan camels,
Seem rather scandent and saltant.
These are the irregular, well-armed cavalry of the 
"Men In...

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It all began with a man who owns a cart,
And the Tunisian government took it away.
Now a martyr, having no idea what would start,
The ‘Arab Spring’ began on that day,
Causing the Tunisian leader to give way.

The revolt then spread to neighboring Egypt.
Thousands gathering in Tahrir...

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Along Iran's alluvial fan, 
spanned a virgin, untested 
train
A scourging blight the tender, 
fecund suckers did restrain
A heartier tulip bloomed on 
Tunisia's arid plain
A docile wave the royal 
Jasmine blight to stain  
Transplanted in Egypt; a more 
fertile strain
Leaching the arid soil, the 
tyrannical oasis...

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The Arab Spring 

Saddam Husain, Mubarak and soon Assad
will go… and we can be jubilant and call it
democracy and freedom. 
But this does not include the Christians,
In Iraq there are hardly any left, in Egypt 
they are under attack and when Assad falls
the Christian Arab...

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Five Arab Men


In the dead of night, asleep in my bed
Suddenly, upon a hill as bright as day
A vision before me, or am I misled

On this asphalt road,to the left, a tractor trailer stands
Waiting as if impatient
Cloisters, old fort on the right, playing of the...

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A pockmarked plane atop the wooden box
tilts as it dips in the Syrian void,
its hollow compartment lining the faults like
a silver ball which never rests but always 
rolls, always weary those worrisome holes
that chisel the quarry to calcified clumps.
Six years spent fighting, flushing freedom
from his...

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Drogue, Rogue.
Arab beauty.
Special Heir.
Jump up-down.
Slice like an Arab Ninja.
What is the blade?
Sharp point with Arab Brittle.
Separate from the end.
Muller Tick-Tock.
Poison the Tyrant.
Bomb the Oppressors
And, swordplay....

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In the seven hundreds, we traded salt
Arab and Berber traders
Were gold and ivory graders
Horses and tigers bartering came to a halt
Cloth, swords, and books traded for chocolate malt....

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We the off-springs of deserts
Rules by decades of fears
With our fists and guts 
Shackled by servitude
Our minds corrupted by monarchies
Fooled and pulled by tyrants
Today, we ooze our blood for fraternity
Painting our deserts with tears 
Saying no to insanity
In the corridors of their bullets,
We bully the...

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Dormant aspirations lie in winter's fallow ground
Burgeoning freedom furrowed in shallow soil; sovereign elements do pound
Infertile seeds in barren hearths tightly wound
A cold wind from on high scourges each, desolate mound
A dreary drizzle from hovering, satin crowns seeps deep; hopes are drowned
Nutrients for spawning growth...

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Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus thorns;
clouding your eyes
like sandstorms.

Here we shall remain,
like brick walls obstructing...

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Mahmoud Darwish English Translations of Arabic Poems



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's trembling beginnings,
a boulder covered with moss,
mothers who dance to the...

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