High Illusions

by Muhammed Al-Qaddafi Masoud / November 1st, 2026

No coffee for us this evening.
No silence to disturb our dust.
Your coffee
add a spoon of sugar,
aim your eyes at the sun,
weeping green tears drop by drop.
Cafés serve up the homeland
in the color of coffee.
Does the dream give you an apple
to ride a cloud,
leaving your will
in olive oil,
another sigh
on fleeing shadows,
then extinguishes you so you can gather yesterday’s firewood?
You wonder: is there marble that grows old
in the high places
of illusions?

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. Read other articles by Mohammed.

This article was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2026 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.