Muhammad al-Maghout is a poet, playwright, and columnist, born in 1934 in al-Salamiyaa, Syria. His best collections  are: -- Huzn fi Daw' al-Qamar [Sadness in Moonlight, 1959], Ghurfa bi-malayin al-Judran [A Room with Millions of Walls, 1964] and al-Farah laysa Mihnati [Joy is not my Profession, 1970], and was the first modern Arab poet to bring attention to the colourful complexities of the simple life.  He introduced Arabic poetics to current and newly-coined words, sometimes even slang-words juxtaposed in simple phrases creating a cadence previously unknown. Written during his exile in Beirut, his poetry -- which is among the pioneer works of non-metrical Arabic free verse -- is a cry in the jungle of language against the ruthless world of exile. He presented a new vision of life that was an access to the unknown for new generations of poets, and is still an influential force in modern Arab poetry. He has also several plays, among them; The Hunchbacked Bird (1967), The Clown (1974), a novel, The Seesaw (1991), and ten collections of his satirical articles. Since 1970 Al-Maghut has published no new poems, but poetry still remains the hidden passion of this clear-sighted man, as he says himself: "To be a great poet in the Arab world, one must be sincere; to be sincere one must be a free man; to be free one must live; and to live one must keep mum . . . You sicken me, poetry, you immortal and divine

carrion!"

To A Tourist

Here I sit – equidistant

between the innocence of childhood

and the decline of old age

Tourist – help me see – I need

your binoculars

What calls for my attention – I cannot fathom

I, a poet from the East

Your white scarf – place it on the sidewalk

Please sit at my side as the rain – soft as the yellow sun

Soothes – a balm for the soul.

Guides and maps are impotent

They are unable to help you

Your writing do nothing for you

as time winds down like a cheap watch

Peasants of multiple decades

deliver folk wisdom

Just two quatrains will deliver in a folk song

the history of the east

The Tattoo

This the third hour of the twentieth century

Corpses everywhere in this hollow land

pedestrians crying tears of hopelessness

Watch as I lie down in the middle of the street

I resemble an old Bedouin

who lives with bars of steel

Policemen victimize demonstrators who in vain seek justice

Watch as I write in the dark

My pen and my tears are now one.

My pen is impotent but still i write – words as hollow as a life without hopelessness

Prison bars seek what i no longer am

as my pen scribbles like a child with language hiding in the dark

Where does this fear originate? When will it be no more?

My bones are old; my hopes mock me like blood losing its redness

My love – in vain I try to restore my courage even my misery

All EYES ON THE HORIZON

The Aroma of bread

Or the scent of nations on travelers’ clothes

In my finest dress- like a lover

Anticipating my first date

Flooded with excitement.

Catching sight of her (the revolution) my, soul sings

A song of enchantment and young love

Evenings I plan to accompany her

To both alleys and country sides

Where I can open my heart and fill her

With all that I am and wish to be.

Until sleep overtakes her

Like a grandmother by a fire place.

But suppose she fails to come.

Then sorrow will assault me

And hope hide among the trees

And I will curse the heavens.

WHEN THE WORDS BURN

Poetry no longer becomes me

I see Lebanon Burning

I seek escape from this conflagration

What can one do when his nation is collapsing

A village girl can do me no good

Only collapse I see

Poetry hides its light from my sight

An unknown girl is seeking my love

or is it the love of all?

The mountains swell with passion

in the desert of my days

I am not your typical citizen

My words fail and mock my efforts

I – a ruthless eagle not knowing what

to do

Arabs skirt to and from lost among the mountains

their voices of sadness weigh on me

Graves of the unknown mar the land

My eyes of treachery stare in blindness

My brothers are now unknown to me

Lebanon – nation hiding her treasures from me

as women captive and alone shed tears on lonely crags.

My nation is voiceless

all of my efforts futile

How can I write poems of trees and other treasures of nature

My words fade like ice in temperature of ultimate heat

Days of gladness – are they no more?

A bullet in my throat my only answer

(Beirut 1958)