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14th Anniversary Edition, Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Seven Nov-Dec 2023.
Everything comes out of my life, poems by Hatem Al-Shehri.
Everything comes out of my life
Everything comes out of my life
Friends
Love
The family
I must learn to leave
More than once I leave the house
And I found myself at the window waiting for me
Waving to me from afar
Those who close the door very quietly
When they leave, they never come back
The tired rest of the journey of existence
To their friends
There is nothing I can do; I have scissors in my hands
I cut short relationships
I went carrying the corpses of the years on my shoulders
I smell barbecue, it is my dreams burning
Since the birth disaster, I have been a gull searching
For fish
My history, like ours, is full of stupidity
And defeats, the title of my journey: A man who defeated death
And life defeated him
My pens in the pencil case are overflowing with stories
There in the distant forest I decided to bury
My face
I decided to fly
I will fly and when I do
I will never come back
never
The chrysanthemum
and the two eagles game
I play the game of chrysanthemums and vultures with myself
I remove its leaves one by one (I love you,
A little, a lot, passionately, madly, I do not love you)
And the count ends at no love
Even the eagles do not like me, and neither does the chrysanthemum.
I fall like autumn, and in all seasons
I call out to beautiful luck: wait for me
Wait for me in the afternoon hours
I have been screaming since birth
The children fall silent after the birth shout, and I
I am still screaming
I spit every time I see myself in the mirror
I wore a mask of fear to hide my face. The mask fell and my face melted
I walk faceless in the streets
I cannot wander, for I have no face
I shout into existence and the echo comes back, but it is
A voice that does not sound like me
What a loss my voice also escapes from me
I will die and when I die you will eat meat
In my condolences
I will betray myself and erase my memory
I will destroy all evidence that leads to me
At night when I die:
The game of chrysanthemums and vultures will die.
Black Sheep
I turned into ice; I wear ice to live
Ashamedly, I am sad
All the events that I passed over remained on my features
My laugh is a repetitive game
I want all of this, so I paid for it
Life expands according to the extent of a person’s courage, why it
Is as tight as my shoes? I am not afraid
I am a black sheep among white bulls
Blood flows from all my healed wounds
I am still standing like a statue, I could not say goodbye
I said goodbye in twenty words and failed
My friends left and I was alone, poking the flock of my dreams
When I asked my friends for a gift, I would remember them with after
Their departure, they gave me: dark circles under my eyes
I Ignite my memories and warm with them
I blow on the ashes of our sad story
I kick the door of nostalgia with my feet
When I look back, I see that my greatest achievement is standing up
In the face of my sadness
They took away the sky when they gave me wings
They plucked my feathers and thought I was a “falcon”
Perhaps I will be back to being the same as I used to be
When you are an open wound, calamities are salt
I wash my face with tears, this ruin cannot be repaired by crying
What am I missing?
A full life
They do not want my reality, they want my mask
I try to buy things that are not found in the grocery store
(tranquility/love/loyalty)
Until now I am still searching for someone who told me that life is beautiful
I want him in a “head word.”
Currently: I drink my anxiety and sleep:
because I am a black sheep between white bulls.
© Hatem Al-Shehri
Hatem Al-Shehri is a Saudi poet and writer. He is the author of fifteen books, all in the literary field. His works were included in the Dictionary of Writers of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Some of his texts have been translated into English, French and Spanish. He won the second place in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Narration House Award for short stories, first session 2018, from the Culture and Arts Society in Dammam.