Beirut
I walk through this apartment
in West Beirut. It’s a wide and graceful space
and the very air feels like it’s lined with lace.
It’s a privilege, after all, to be, or to feel, safe.
The whole night through the aggressor
has bombed, picking and culling-at life, dear life —
as though it weren’t the unsung riddle that it is,
as though it were a pat and simple thing. Descent
becomes the new arousal here, as we wake
and keen and mourn the violent passing of those
we never knew, those we were never meant
to meet, those more unfortunate, weaker, poorer —
lives that were just as much like brimming mints
of riches as ours are. Poetry makes nothing happen
of course: except to hold a frail and shivering light
above the white blanket of a page, fighting the fight
with wordy weapons — used to unveil the blanketing night
that others, elsewhere, have no more words for.

Omar Sabbagh is a very widely published poet, writer and critic. Poetry Makes Nothing Happen is taken from Night Settles Upon The City, a profoundly reflective and evocative collection that blends personal experience with the brutal realities of life today in a war-torn Beirut. It is published by Daraja Press.