Ahmad Al-khatat

When you articulate nothing at all
My heart becomes an occupied city
With the noise from the rockets, not birds
The clouds drop blood on my fictional planet.

The blue sky opens its chest to those fireworks
I look at those happy faces, lovers kissing lips,
and pretty dresses. I am sorry darling for loving you
-without the ability to cover up my lousy tears.

Do not shatter the windows of daylight’s nostalgia
Open the door of unwelcomed farewell before they bomb us
Hit me with an axe before the death scrapes me
Wear a dress to reunite with my defeated spirit.

I am still awake, and I want more colours of happiness
I want new syllables to run over my refugee’s tongue
I also desire some pulse to hear with my ears and eyes
-closed in my imagination cuddling with you all night long.

When the moon misses its brightness
I feel lonely as a forgotten painting in the gallery at dusk

Do you remember the moments we sipped the sun wine?
I absorb the biological colours of the rainbow

Then splash them above the grey clouds of autumn.
More birds would rise into the blue of her eyes,

They attacked my birthplace and crushed my heart in their infirmary.
I lost my hand and since then I became an alcoholic

Who prays after drinking whiskey from a homesick teacup?
Sad!
Why so!!
Don’t be!!!
My neighbour doesn’t seem
informed of the coffin I’m carrying since I accepted your friendship…

On the first day of the new year,
I light the finest cigarette up and
sip a cup of black coffee by myself,
then write about hope on the typewriter.

The night is born with stars and torn.
The children of the world recall their little pets,
While the children of Iraq & Syria remember
the dates of their sibling’s death in the war.

I no longer run after the birds and butterflies.
My days are low, like the tears of a dying angel.
My life is no longer delightful and brief,
Even love has been eliminated from my universe.

No one seems to care about my flying wings.
Everyone is celebrating the night we were shattered.
The wooden floor sustained your bitter tears.
This oppression made me an alcoholic and hopeless.

Another cigarette, another bottle of Russian whiskey.
Another great rhythm and blues to listen to alone,
Waiting for the time, and walk missing from the pub.
Destiny undresses my flesh and leaves me as rotten skulls.

Our sun rises and we still cannot rise up
raised in poverty and realized that’s a blessing
We taught to walk barefoot with a laughter face
We embraced our heartless enemies constantly
We adopted suicide risks, depressions, insomnia
to our sensitive spirit who we flooded with our tears
The shirtless man and his pregnant wife are
sleeping on the mud of the border hoping that
they will be able to cross the country for a better
future for their child, since our culture would do
nothing but name tags, and mislead the direction
of the peace that we spent years dreaming about
Our sun shares its glow with the moon in blues
Yet, we sleep in darkness as if the sky is the mirror
and we are the shattered stars in the eyes of the warrior.

Take me to the limits of the sun
Away from the miserable nest
of skeletons, simply because
they remind me of my thirty-five years

Take me back in your warm dream
Where life’s bitterness appears more
like a blooming rose in the direction
of the cemetery, in which we can smile

Take me to the sorrows of our home
To learn how to love without weeping
To learn how to raise you to the rainbow
And learn about each other as we are one heart

Take me somewhere far away so
You and I, we are one route to the darkness
Nobody can get in our way, nor damage us
The ones who are in, they will win and the

Ones who escape will die for being lonely
If you cannot take me anywhere near you
Then allow me to sip on some of the best
poison, since I am weak to go on my own
to the limits of the sun…

I am human
from all races
I am looking
for respect,
condition
-attitude
and good
behaviours

I am human
dancing with
no silky touch
but on my own
for no reason
sometimes, I
am trying to
live like a human

My name is
human being
My age is the
numbers of
days of the
dead fighter
My soul is
already taken

Another human
I once met her;
she is the reason
why the night is
sad, no matter
what I do aside
from writing a
poem or a song

Can someone
walk me home
I am blind to
trust strangers
I am a silent
human listening
to dreamers talking
to machine believers

I will be writing a letter
to nobody brave or I know
I want to say I am sorry
for the ones, who hurt me before

I know that life is more
than one locked door
perhaps, my heart is the
house with a broken lock to protect me

yet, my enemy wins over my
innocent moves, his words
are sharp knives, and my answers
are the seeds of the plants in heaven

being blind means, you are
gifted, you just believe in the
ones who wish you death
and nothing else of good in darkness

Inside of my dream
there’s a bird flying
from one nest to an-
-other, without wings

Inside of my dream
there’s a man holding
a sign that says, I
have serious cancer

Inside of my dream
there’s one refugee
with tears of grief
because he lost hope

Inside of my dream
there’s a young lady
smoking, and waiting
for the train to suicide

Inside of my dream
there’s a black cat
staring at me, and
waiting to the end of my dream

Only god knows how much I need you.
I miss you as much as the snow misses
a moment to fall above the cedars.
Everyone says that I should keep moving on,
but I hear your voice coming toward me
slowly as if I hear an echo from a distance.
Weeping, because of my daily routine, the
autumn season appears twice in one year.
First was from the cloud, second is from my eyes
bitter is how happiness tastes
I smile in my dreams, waiting to see you
before the train comes and leaves me in grief