Live Encounters Arab Poetry & Writing July 2026
Orphanage, poems by Mohamed Refaie.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Orphanage
I chew sadness when the night turns into a black shawl
and the moon into earrings glinting in your ears,
when the stars flow down your cheeks,
when your sleepy shyness slaughters the joy in the days.
My love
who put my days, all my days, in an orphanage?
There, where every corner holds a broken girl
and remains of dry kisses
and many pictures of feelings with a musty smell.
While I chew sadness as I try
to capture a picture of love from afar
as it laughs, as it stands alone in the crowd
and whispers to me:
“I’ll pay for two tickets, as usual, and enter the cinema alone.”
The Painter
I wish I were a painter,
so I could give this loneliness a mouth and make it smile.
So I could place my lover inside my heart all at once,
without having to say to her, “I love you.”
Or paint myself as a nameless face in some happy family photo.
Or even paint a secret rope tying me to my mother in heaven.
Or at least try to paint an open grave
so I could pull out my mother’s body one more time—again.
I don’t know why all these seconds and days and heavy years
have gotten used to passing slowly over my body, locked up tight.
I wish I had become a painter,
so I could paint her many doors and windows
to enter and leave whenever I please,
to wring out all those memories, then dry them
after washing them clean of sorrow.
If I became a painter,
I’d erase all that pain from the face of this world in a hurry,
turn it into a giant house of candy for children to lick on their way home.
How I’ve wanted to paint music as it enters with innocent sweetness,
like a tiny angel, into every dark corner of my heart,
and paint a passing cloud in the shape of “I love you”
for my father to see every morning.
I wish I were a painter, and not a poet
with nothing but a frail imagination,
whose feelings suddenly wilted the moment this poem was born.
More Delicate Than Sorrow,
Freer Than Loneliness
Nothing matters anymore.
Days need other days just so I can live them.
And when the earth opens its mouth to swallow everyone I love,
I try to swallow the earth instead of swallowing my tears
like writing a poem without meaning,
or with a meaning no one can grasp—just like me.
When I stretch my legs out on a distant shore without any legs,
watching the exhausted panting of the waves
trying to cling to the shore in a last attempt at salvation—
but no use,
while the sky rains pointed seconds that bounce off my head,
and minutes… and hours… and years that don’t look like me.
Nothing looks like me anymore.
Days need other days just so I can live them.
Today, for example, I want to wander alone in Al-Hussein,
or on Emad El-Din Street.
Those old houses know how to hold me.
When I see their breath pass through my chest,
more delicate than sorrow, freer than loneliness.
freer than sorrow, more delicate than loneliness.
And as I cross a narrow passage they call “life,”
where I crave innocence, not a woman’s bare chest,
and I fear death for my father without realizing
I’m still holding the broom to sweep the living room
of my dry imagination’s stains after a long, hard day of work,
watching my mother’s eyes smile,
and hearing a velvety voice whisper in my ear:
“You are a hero.”
© Mohamed Refaie
Dr Salwa Gouda is an accomplished Egyptian literary translator, critic, and academic affiliated with the English Language and Literature Department at Ain Shams University. Holding a PhD in English literature and criticism, Dr. Gouda pursued her education at both Ain Shams University and California State University, San Bernardino. She has authored several academic works, including Lectures in English Poetry and Introduction to Modern Literary Criticism, among others. Dr. Gouda also played a significant role in translating The Arab Encyclopedia for Pioneers, a comprehensive project featuring poets, philosophers, historians, and literary figures, conducted under the auspices of UNESCO. Recently, her poetry translations have been featured in a poetry anthology published by Alien Buddha Press in Arizona, USA. Her work has also appeared in numerous international literary magazines, further solidifying her contributions to the field of literary translation and criticism.
Mohamed Refaie is an Egyptian poet and chemical engineer born in Alexandria in 1991, whose work bridges technical expertise and deep human sensitivity. His academic background includes a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering, postgraduate diplomas in Natural Gas Extraction and Learning Disabilities, an MBA in Strategic Planning and Digital Transformation (2027), and an executive diploma from Harvard University (2025). As a poet, he has received Egypt’s prestigious State of Encouragement Award (2025) and the Supreme Council of Culture Award (2024), along with being crowned “Prince of Poets of Egyptian Universities” in 2016. His poems have been translated into English and French, with one collection currently undergoing translation.
Refaie has published three poetry collections: An Attempt to Kill My Shadow (2019), Weeping of a Metal Coin (2023), and the forthcoming Kicking the World with My Feet. His work has appeared at major book fairs in Cairo, Baghdad, and Riyadh, and has been featured in Egyptian, Jordanian, and Lebanese media outlets, including Al-Ahram Gate and Sawt Al-Jeel Magazine. He has also made television appearances on Nile Life TV and Channel 5 in Alexandria, solidifying his presence as a distinguished voice in contemporary classical Arabic poetry.