Translated by Abbas El Sheikh
Edited by Mark Pirie
And I say: In the far away
There is something calling for remembrance
In cities exhausted by the sea
I dump my dreams
I have souvenirs from wars
And from cities: wounds
I have the tears of reeds,
The sighs of date palms,
The revelation of oranges
The blood of myrtle
There …
On the map of my childhood
I leave my innocence pierced
By the rot of the military
Whose barracks stole me from home
And threw me into exile
God and I are alone
There is an eternity seeking shelter in me
And forgetfulness abandons me
Leaving the smell of bombardment
In the corridors of my life
And in the far away I say:
War takes me by surprise and sweeps away my happiness
All I catch is a mirage
Without a passport
The Euphrates ignites its waves for me
All things point to you
But nothing reminds me of you
The heavens bend for you to cross
A thread of butterflies waits at your door
The singing of birds reaches you
And a transparent coo touches the paper
And in the whiteness of it all there’s a long revelation
And I say: in the south there is a south
The woman of forty ignores that
For my father was the most cheerful of all the murdered
His bravery left us with hunger and the gloating of others
And through thirty lunar years my mother waited
Until she herself became waiting …
Now my childhood darkened by poverty and orphanage
Is poking its tongue and scoffing at me
And my life is darkened by war and exile
Wherever I lie, I find the Euphrates lying beside me
Extending its dreams to me
Dreams crammed with bombs and sirens
I wake up and roam the streets
Weakened by memories
I exchange the splinters of bombs with roses and poems
The aggression of bombardment
With Mulla Othman Al Mousilly’s lute
And the Maqams of Al Gubbanchi
For the sea is made wet by the songs of sailors
Tears resting on its shores
How it keeps lovers and children amused,
Shells falling asleep on the eyelids of waves
And rocks reclining on its lap
Counting the wishes falling from those passing
War also has its anthems
Those that drenched the bosoms of mothers
With wailing and anxiety
Its windows wide-open for waiting
With no-one approaching
Its doors eroded by sadness
And its doorsteps crumbling
With dreams dragged along the streets
O streets, when will I see …
The death procession of my grief? -
Those pale streetlights exhausted by the frost …
And for the war …
Bombs whose heads rest on
The pillows of our bodies
And sleep inside us
The murdered - and in their pockets
Sparrows quarrel with the morning
And play with an orphan star forgotten by the night
Letters flow with the dawn
And I say:
O gasp of the south
O son of the sun
And the rivers whose mouths spit catastrophe
Just as prophets and holy books emanate from you
Wars always fail you
And you find yourself outside the borders of home
And once you think of home
You are swallowed by exile
You blow your years and ashes is what you find
And scared that your dignity might be buried
Every night you have a party
For the Tigris in the farthest south
There’s no south behind me so I can say:
Here’s my homeland
Nor is there south in front of me to cut through
I am the absolute south
Equipped with a long history of war and tragedy
Glories polluted by the whips of the Governor
And the General’s medals of ‘honour’
Strip me naked in the forbidden land
My night is filled with the details of barracks
The nightly password
The officer on duty
And the death squads
All the women I’ve known
And all Women
Whose lust I shall poison
With my foolishness
Have smelt the neigh of hurdles in my breath
And my hallucinations
Have provoked their womanliness
In the night’s darkness
And I say:
O gasp of the two rivers
To shake hands with my alienation
Shall I set my roots on fire
And cast my thirty years out to sea
To make a feast for the fish?
Must I remove my shirt
Which is filled with bombs,
Insults and sanctions
To be embraced by
A sky that doesn’t belong to me?
And I say:
O gasp of the two rivers
In the far away
There is something calling for remembrance
In the distant cities exhausted by the sea
I dump my dreams
I have souvenirs from wars
And from cities: wounds
Edited by Mark Pirie
And I say: In the far away
There is something calling for remembrance
In cities exhausted by the sea
I dump my dreams
I have souvenirs from wars
And from cities: wounds
I have the tears of reeds,
The sighs of date palms,
The revelation of oranges
The blood of myrtle
There …
On the map of my childhood
I leave my innocence pierced
By the rot of the military
Whose barracks stole me from home
And threw me into exile
God and I are alone
There is an eternity seeking shelter in me
And forgetfulness abandons me
Leaving the smell of bombardment
In the corridors of my life
And in the far away I say:
War takes me by surprise and sweeps away my happiness
All I catch is a mirage
Without a passport
The Euphrates ignites its waves for me
All things point to you
But nothing reminds me of you
The heavens bend for you to cross
A thread of butterflies waits at your door
The singing of birds reaches you
And a transparent coo touches the paper
And in the whiteness of it all there’s a long revelation
And I say: in the south there is a south
The woman of forty ignores that
For my father was the most cheerful of all the murdered
His bravery left us with hunger and the gloating of others
And through thirty lunar years my mother waited
Until she herself became waiting …
Now my childhood darkened by poverty and orphanage
Is poking its tongue and scoffing at me
And my life is darkened by war and exile
Wherever I lie, I find the Euphrates lying beside me
Extending its dreams to me
Dreams crammed with bombs and sirens
I wake up and roam the streets
Weakened by memories
I exchange the splinters of bombs with roses and poems
The aggression of bombardment
With Mulla Othman Al Mousilly’s lute
And the Maqams of Al Gubbanchi
For the sea is made wet by the songs of sailors
Tears resting on its shores
How it keeps lovers and children amused,
Shells falling asleep on the eyelids of waves
And rocks reclining on its lap
Counting the wishes falling from those passing
War also has its anthems
Those that drenched the bosoms of mothers
With wailing and anxiety
Its windows wide-open for waiting
With no-one approaching
Its doors eroded by sadness
And its doorsteps crumbling
With dreams dragged along the streets
O streets, when will I see …
The death procession of my grief? -
Those pale streetlights exhausted by the frost …
And for the war …
Bombs whose heads rest on
The pillows of our bodies
And sleep inside us
The murdered - and in their pockets
Sparrows quarrel with the morning
And play with an orphan star forgotten by the night
Letters flow with the dawn
And I say:
O gasp of the south
O son of the sun
And the rivers whose mouths spit catastrophe
Just as prophets and holy books emanate from you
Wars always fail you
And you find yourself outside the borders of home
And once you think of home
You are swallowed by exile
You blow your years and ashes is what you find
And scared that your dignity might be buried
Every night you have a party
For the Tigris in the farthest south
There’s no south behind me so I can say:
Here’s my homeland
Nor is there south in front of me to cut through
I am the absolute south
Equipped with a long history of war and tragedy
Glories polluted by the whips of the Governor
And the General’s medals of ‘honour’
Strip me naked in the forbidden land
My night is filled with the details of barracks
The nightly password
The officer on duty
And the death squads
All the women I’ve known
And all Women
Whose lust I shall poison
With my foolishness
Have smelt the neigh of hurdles in my breath
And my hallucinations
Have provoked their womanliness
In the night’s darkness
And I say:
O gasp of the two rivers
To shake hands with my alienation
Shall I set my roots on fire
And cast my thirty years out to sea
To make a feast for the fish?
Must I remove my shirt
Which is filled with bombs,
Insults and sanctions
To be embraced by
A sky that doesn’t belong to me?
And I say:
O gasp of the two rivers
In the far away
There is something calling for remembrance
In the distant cities exhausted by the sea
I dump my dreams
I have souvenirs from wars
And from cities: wounds
