I Have No Power

I have no power to change you 

or explain your ways

Never believe a man can change a woman

Those men are pretenders

who think

that they created woman from one of their ribs

Woman does not emerge from a man's rib's

, not ever,

it's he who emerges from her womb

like a fish rising from depths of water

and like streams that branch away from a river

It's he who circles the sun of her eyes

and imagines he is fixed in place

I have no power to tame you

or domesticate you

or mitigate your first instincts

This task is impossible

I've tested my intelligence on you

also my dumbness

Nothing worked with you, neither guidance

nor temptation

Stay primitive as you are

I have no power to break your habits

for thirty years you have been like this

for three hundred years

a storm trapping in a bottle

a body by nature sensing the scent of a man

assaults it by nature

triumphs over it by nature

Never believe what a man says about himself

that he is the one who makes the poems

and makes the children

It is the woman who writes the poems

and the man who signs his name to them

It is the woman who bears the children

and the man who signs at the maternity hospital

that he is the father

I have no power to change your nature

my books are of no use to you

and my convictions do not convince you

nor does my fatherly council do you any good

you are the queen of anarchy, of madness, of belonging

to no one

Stay that way

You are the tree of femininity

that grows in the dark

needs no sun or water

you the sea princess who has loved all men

and loved no one slept with all men… and slept with no one

you are the Bedouin woman who went with all the tribes

and returned a virgin

Stay that way."

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/I-Have-No--Power#sthash.16IjPv4p.dpuf

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Comments

  • Hi Tawfeeq  how life is treating you ? 

    Yes I really love the truth has hidden in his poem :D

    really ? Which poet ?

  • Hi Sima @Most Arab know this great poet .He is very famous .I like his nice poems .They were written in blank verse ,rich of powerful feelings with nice poetic images , simple and easy to understand .
    By the way I bought three divans for three Persian poets from Esfahan. They were translated into English .They were really great divans . Thank you for sharing .

  • No one can change me May :-* 

    No hardship , Love ya :)

  • that is a great poem has came from a heart of human , I love this poet :)

  • This is a translated Arabic poem written by Nizar qabbani (the man in the picture), can anybody imagine that a MAN can be able to describe a woman's feeling that nicely precisely like he did!

    At the end of the day, HE who blew the storm and again he is the one couragely facing it!

  • They Made our mind  busy with story and religion :D 

    No one can stand in front of a woman :D 

    I am so happy you love it :)

  • I love it!!!! It is so real, Sima! Even though it described hopeless woman, m sure we all once reached this point but then had to somehow help ourselves, to stand up again and to "fight" ;-)

  • Dear Mishaikh , Yes maybe the pain hidden in this poem is come from the pain that poet suffer of seeing the women in his time that do not know the power of women and lots of and :D

  • Dear Ohnie this is a poem of Nizar Qabbani , His words made me cry today the way of my home to job. 

    You know the way that he create  the art for showing the greatest of women is wonderful :)

    Thanks for your comment :)

  • There is all the pain in each and every word, the feeling of being helplessness, to see the change in the status of human kind.

    very touchy!

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