Download PDF Here
14th Anniversary Edition, Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Seven Nov-Dec 2023.
Alone – and no one else, poems by Ali Al-Hazmi.
Alone – and no one else
In sleep, no one sees you
Even if you screamed loudly in the wilds of the dream
No trace of your footsteps
Even if you walk on the silk of the first desire
For the farthest kiss
The earth cannot recognize
Your sparkle in the praises of absence!
In sleep, you close the door of your eyelids
In faces that you can no longer believe in
The meaning of love in her gaze
With your hands you open a window for yesterday to
Penetrate through its surroundings to the spring of those who filled
Your heart with life, singing, and hope
In sleep, it is enough to wave from your bed
For those you love to fall
From the clouds of their past and their forgetfulness
You go to the folk of your early years
With free spirit, no blurry horizon to hinder you
On the way to your distant ends
In sleep, imagination triumphs
On his defeats, and wishful thinking avenges
From his pains and from his jailer
In sleep, there is neither morning nor night
Times are equal in meaning
And in the passion of contemplating in absence
In sleep, you are farther than
The echo of your memory, closer than
The blooming of a flower in its field
You are the last, the first, the second, and your shadow
On the way to the truth, the third of two
They regained a forgotten destination for the question
In sleep, you won’t need a compass
To know that you are the intended with the stares around you
Whenever they turn from the past to you
You alone and no one else
Who should watch the lightness of spirits
Touch the feathers of her cheerful bird
And you alone are responsible for
Liberating the last doe of melancholy
From the ambushes of her coming grief and from its shackles
In sleep, it is easy to search
For a quiet place to wet
The rose of your soul with emotional clouds
In sleep, you will no longer need
An additional key to enter
The house of the one you loved at the night
She comes to you, the one rejecting you for long
In the years of her torment
She comes to you, the one who hid your love
In the spring of her shy cheeks and in her eyelashes
In sleep, it is appropriate to date whomever you want
Of women, to recognize the eyelids of
Who captivated your youth with her village eyelash
Who continues to love you without the desire of her family
She walks joyfully in your imagination towards the secret of the suspicious planet
In the gazes of those you seduced
On the banks of silence at the last time
You are not interested to know who went too far
In ignoring your magic that comes from memory
No woman can resist your male perfume
This evening
In sleep, the companions gather
On the carpet of your tender heart
You will be visited by whose love you have blessed with for some time
And comes whose step you waited for
But there is a strange child among them
You do not remember, he is staring intently
In your eyes whenever you ignore him
A strange child whenever you approach a meter
From his features, you are alienated!
A strange child, he kept carrying
Within his hands, a blind lamp
You do not know his secret, and whenever
You tried to get close to light it
His fuse was extinguished!
You are tired of understanding the lost in its features
His eyes are thorns from the past
That blows on your eyelids
Like predatory arrows when they turn!
He is immersed in silence and a cloud of questions
Lands on your lips like a mirage
So, you are not guided to your path
In the distance and you did not quench your thirst!
You are tired in your endeavors, obsessed with arriving
To the verge of his woven silence
With the old pain and you have not reached!
Why do not you believe in your dreams every night
That you are the forgotten in the eyelids of the companions
And that who you called the strange child
Is you?!
© Ali Al-Hazmi
Ali Al-Hazmi (1970) is a Saudi poet who obtained BA from the Arabic Language Department at Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca. His poems were published in local, Arab newspapers, magazines and many specialized cultural periodicals. He participated in reviving many poetry evenings in many local literary clubs, literary festivals and forums in a number of countries around the world. He has published nearly seven poetry books. Moreover, his poetry collections have been translated into French, English, Turkish, Romanian, German, Spanish and other languages. Al-Hazmi, also, awarded national and international prizes, among them: Poetry Prize at the Uruguayan Poetry Festival 2015, The Grand International Prize of the International Poetry Nights Festival in Romania 2017, “Verbumlandi” International Poetry Prize, Italy, 2017. “Best International Poet of 2018” award from the International Poetry Translation and Research Center in China (IPRC).