Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Wheat of Words
Rain draws up
houses in the clouds,
chairs made of light.
Angels plow the night
of happiness.
They plant songs in
the brass threshing-floors,
beating the wheat of words.
Author: Muhammad Al-Qaddafi Masoud
Translation Dr. Salwa Goda
On the House’s Hip
We write on the house’s hip:
We are here.
We chew on the street’s loneliness
’til the alley turns
into a moon on the soul’s shoulder.
The wind’s wound…
you tell it like a secret.
Lightning drinks its glass,
and we drink down the question.
Sparrows soften the bitter cold.
What’s the point of staying…?
The olive tree left it to the windows
to tell what’s left
of the shouting inside us,
tossing it in the grinder.
Author: Muhammad Al-Qaddafi Masoud
Translation Dr. Salwa Goda
Tightness
No sound strips me bare
but time’s handkerchiefs
wiping themselves,
and ruin is born
blooming tight little dreams.
The poet
Mohammed Al Gaddafi Masoud born in 1978 in Gharyan, Libya, holds a theater diploma from Tripoli’s Jamal Al-Din Al-Miladi Institute (2000) and is the author of several collections, including lyrical poetry (We Woke Up to Joy, 2006) and journalistic dialogues (My Dialogues with Them, 2008). Widely published across the Arab world, his work has been translated into numerous languages—English, Chinese, Spanish, Polish, French, Italian, and Albanian—and appeared in international print and online journals from Spain to Argentina. In 2024, he was selected as one of 72 global poets for an Italian-language anthology curated by Angela Costa, reflecting his broadening transnational literary presence.
Translation Dr. Salwa Goda
