Live Encounters Arab Women Poets & Writers June 2026
Drowning in Thirst, poems Roshan Ali Jaan.
Translated from Arabic by Dr. Salwa Gouda.
Drowning in Thirst
Nothing hurts suddenly
O country asleep in its own ruin.
Grant me a passion that follows the first step,
like a heavenly miracle.
Grant me a body with twisted feet,
a hand that shakes the night inside an orphan’s eyes
so I can tell you the journey of those who return
from death without a guide.
Grant me the sea’s inner sight,
violets made of water’s senses
so I can drown again in thirst.
I am the soothsayer of fading hopes.
From your daylight, I conjure a longing
that straightens anxiety’s features.
O country asleep in its ruin
everything after you hurts me.
It hurts me—the flare of obsessions
in the night of speech.
The long talons of loneliness hurt me.
The geranium flower veined in white,
the wound of the stranger and his deep wishes.
The slender hand that waving failed.
The eyes that lost their gleam in absence.
O memory made of willow-meaning
your face, lost in amber, hurts me.
I am the scattered pain
on your cherished smile.
Chrysalises of Longing
Sweetly you pass over childhood nests,
drunk on the panting of delights,
like a prayer stroking the face of day,
like a moan for cities we were forced to leave.
Surprise arrivals suit you.
The chrysalises of longing suit you.
Your face is still a star lifting boredom
off the universe’s orbits with a morning smile.
With your guilty silence,
I will raid all the thirsting wildernesses
and wait for seasons to plant you as grass in mirrors.
The night’s delirium is no longer enough
to drench lullabies on your cold fence.
Return with the majesty of excuses,
so I can tell you of the north wind
that broke my heart,
left it hanging,
rocking the shudder of emptiness there
about the eloquence of color overthrown by the place’s trance,
about a rose baptizing the fence
so distance becomes a flute
feeling the hip of spaces,
about the lineages of pits
when silence steals the river’s voice from my throat.
Ibex Fleeing the Violins
With her astonished eyes,
she measures the naked distance of lost wildernesses.
A woman branded with the henna of defenseless color.
Deep inside her, prey of fear trembles.
In her chest, blind violets strut.
She carpets herself with the reeds of eternal rivers.
She throws her burning Kurdish shawl—iridescent
over sunflowers.
She scatters the loose breeze with her slender hands.
The mythical bird flies
close to the nectar of her braids,
reciting to her the pain of wildflowers.
It is absence
the misguidance of struggling trees.
Trees as naked as two lovers,
trembling like a fig tree under kisses.
In a hoarse voice, she hums songs of longing.
Long ago, the fire was in my heart.
I am the exhausted one,
bound by the power of wild ibex
ibex fleeing the noise of violins
as they weep for the stranger’s sorrow.
Forgetting
You are forgotten.
Your star-tattooed letters
returned sluggish with the silver of the blue mountain.
Your mirrors are hollow.
Do not tie the knot.
The passages are safe.
There—in the distant galaxy—an orchid flower
still lives on the edge of love,
dazzled by crimson red.
Oh, you forgotten one
you are still waiting.
I Fear the Final Wound
O autumn,
tell me how to kick the world.
Tell me how to trade
the stillness of water in my soul for a curse of wine.
How to leave the fragility of time
without the face of water breaking.
O autumn,
this yellow does not concern me.
Let me escape the mania of coloring.
This color—old with desire—confuses me.
Your footsteps on the edge confuse me.
I have not died yet.
Teach me how to restore the sea’s imagination
so I can leap over beads of speech.
Teach me how to strut with chestnut’s restlessness
as if I were a ballerina.
I fear the final wound.
I fear the rituals of superstition
that give the mouth of the wound
to the pain of the poem.
For so long, I have propped my stature on the gasp of the repentant.
I lean on the fence of morning
like a mimosa flower.
And with the longing of bronze imagination,
I tie the rope of salvation to the eyes of the gods.
© Roshan Ali Jaan
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.
Roshan Ali Jaan is a Syrian poet, born in Damascus and residing in Sweden. A graduate of the Faculty of Education, she worked in the field of education in Syrian schools. She has published a poetry collection titled Amber of Darkness, and a second collection titled Requiem of the Rose is currently in print. Her poems have been translated into numerous languages, including English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Bengali, and Kurdish.