poet

– Pablo Neruda 

Literature

Los pájaros nocturnos picotean las primeras estrellas que centellean como mi alma cuando te amo. 

The birds of the night peck at the first stars that flash like my soul when I love you.

VII – Inclinado En Las Tardes (Leaning Into The Afternoons)

Remembrance Day: 11.11.2014

Original Writing

To mark another poignant day of reflecting on the lives tragically lost in World War One, I thought I’d post Wilfred Owen’s 1914. I chose 1914 because it was one of his first poems I read when I first stumbled across poetry in school, and his poetry, graphic, disturbing and heart-rending, has stuck with me throughout the years. It’s also one of his first poems on the war. My thoughts go out to all those who suffered directly and indirectly as a result of such a horrendously tragic war. To those who gave their lives for us, and died in honour, for a greater world. 

War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art’s ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love’s wine’s thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.

For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed

– Erin Hanson

Poetry

…you are all the books you read,
And all the words you speak,
You are your croaky morning voice,
And the smiles you try to hide,
You are the sweetness in your laughter,
And every tear you’ve cried,
You’re the songs you sing so loudly,
when you know you’re all alone,
You’re the places you’ve been to,
And the one you call home,
You’re the things that you believe in,
And the people that you love,
You’re the photos in your bedroom.
And the future you dream of,
You’re made of so much beauty,
But it seems you forgot,
When you decided that you were defined,
By all the things you’re not.

Not 

Lover’s Halves

Original Writing

Half of me wants to smoke Marlboros with you and stain our skin with ash and ink and blood and sweat and kisses – everything that epitomises the lust that hangs in the air when we enter the same room. Half of me wants to devour you wholeheartedly, at once, until there is nothing left but the whisper of your existence. But the other half of me wants to write poems about you because every love song fits, and every great love story reminds me of us. It wants to dress up in a tiny black dress and feel you caress the dip of my spine whilst we slow dance to dulcet tones of our love’s journey. It wants to write you letters every day of the week so you know what my love for you sounds like; what true love really is.

Mohammad Al-Dhaba

Quotes

لا أحد يعرف اللحظات الصغيرة التي ماتت فيها روحك، و لا أحد يعرف متى عادت و لا كيف عادت! و لا أحد يعرف لماذا تبتسم و أنت وحدك، كن قوياً لأجلك!

no one knows the tiny moments when your soul died, knows when it was revived or how, and no one knows why you smile when you’re alone. Be strong for you.