Painting by Hadeel Naiz

“I didn't know that some voices are music.

I didn't know that some chests are cities.

I didn't know that you can see all people

in the eyes of some people

until I met you the first time.

I didn't know that looking to some faces is suicide,

and looking into his eyes is life.

I didn't know looking into those eyes

is a never ending travel. 

I didn't know that there is a moon on earth,

till I met you the first time.”

-from A City That Never Sleeps by Fahd Al-Awda

      (translated from Arabic by Hadeel Naiz)

Stray Dogs

Ziziphus tree sings of birds.

Crows dance on the horizon.

To dream in the Arabian desert!

Awake,

the tree is dead.

They are not crows

but stray dogs picking

a thousand trash piles

at the messy edge of the city.

I used to think the treatment of dogs

and the health of a culture

were congruent.

But in America

the dogs are better fed than the poor,

as it commits suicide

like all the other air-conditioned empires

of history.