By SCOTT BARANCIK, Times Staff Writer
Published March 9, 2006
If poetry is a window into the heart, American intelligence analysts should perform an EKG on the rhymes of Dubai ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. The sheik's city-state controls Dubai Ports World, the company at the center of a Washington clash over U.S. port security.
According to his Web site, sheikmohammed.com, the 57-year-old billionaire published his first poems under pseudonyms in local newspapers, and he writes in a centuries-old vernacular style called Nabati. He promotes the art form today by competing in poetry slams with fellow leaders and by posing a riddle every year, along with a substantial prize for the winner. Several years ago, thousands of writers from around the Arab world responded to the riddle, but none was judged fully correct. The right answer was "Dubai."
Sheik Mohammed writes mostly about kohl-eyed beauties who trample his heart. The father of 16 writes with equal passion, if less often, about the Palestinian cause.
"If poetry fails to express the nation's wishes, dreams, hopes and pains," he said in a 2003 Internet chat, "it has no value."
Below are two examples of his work, translated from the Arabic.
- SCOTT BARANCIK,
Times staff writer
Place me in your eyes
Place me in your eyes and close
Let me in your eyes live
I fear, though compelled, do not blink
Protect from falling your captive
And tears, though sad, do not shed
Lest I drown in the flood of eyelids
I lament time, passed blind
Alas, it slipped by with you far
The sword of your eyes, the blade shines
In your eyes, the charm of your charm
Dwelling in the heart, for you a pasture
Quaffing the tears of your lover
Which for the ample grass compensate
Browsing in an inside that protects you
Listen not to rumors or allusions
Nor to whoever blames
I keep for you promises so true
And for you intimacy abiding
All the world, for me throbs
I feel it desolate without you
Stand with justice (narrated by the youth of Palestine)
Pervaded the darkness and pervaded our aggressor
In the camp, faces of death without mercy
Death in our land, my brother, is routine
Like honey, though others taste it as colocynth
Worse than death to mortgage my country
To pawn Al Aqsa and Al Quds, to surrender
Worse than death to bequeath my children
Shame and disgrace that history would proclaim
Yes, I resist with my body, I forge my glories
Glory knows not the lover of dirhams
Glory knows naught but a free calling
For martyrdom, with faith enduring
Whoever seeks victory asleep on pillows
Tell him be sure to dream whilst sleeping
Victory through sacrifice, though flow valleys
If blood flows - no victory without blood
Your money and soul for your country sacrifice
Who does not sacrifice for his country must regret
Oh my people free, oh my people, oh my country
Stand with justice, never will justice be vanquished
