Leave the Crook
Put down that shepherd’s crook,
you with the polished air.
Stop your circling,
your blind stumbles
out of the dream.
That stick you wave
at a flock of children,
making a holy vow
that only blooms
when your tragedy peaks.
You weave your cloak from a people’s faith,
stitching sunbeams to pretty lies.
When you’re lost in ecstasy,
the desert shows you its face
and I make it into dreams,
so you can offer a rose
to the era that never saw you born.
Nothing promises you anything.
You’re past the end.
No fantasy holds you up,
no color hides you.
You don’t need a hiding cap,
you need a helmet.
Your reflection has changed,
and being different has made you
a slippery, mercury question.
Oh, child of the Boundless.
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Mohammed Al-Qaddafi Masoud
Translation Dr. Salwa Goda
Naked with Certainty
One nap-time,
she pulled back the curtains of her glare,
let her sadness go naked.
Layla doesn’t give mirrors a chance
to catch what’s alike and not alike.
She became one with the clear rain,
curled into laughter on the skyline,
she knew the wolf’s kiss was danger.
First to arrive, a knight
carrying baskets of myths,
wiping away alone-ness.
Oh, the running away of names from their names,
and the end of questions where they start.
I whispered in autumn’s ear,
“Hide from the seasons’ calm.”
Rain stitches the earth a shirt
for those naked with certainty.
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.
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.
Libyan poet Mohammed Gaddafi Masoud won second place in the fifth edition of the “Francesco Giampietri International Literary Prize” held in the historic city of Venafro, Italy. His poems have been selected for more than one international anthology in Italian, English, and Albanian.
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Translation by Dr. Salwa Goda