Sunday, June 06, 2010

Sunday Poetry: Safaa Sheikh Hamad

Thus sang the troubadour


Coming from behind the sea of Atlas

Ships laden with cargoes of death

Hearts full of purulence

Minds that never cared about a soul

Led by the new Agamemnon

To smash Troy that never kidnapped Helen

Joy has been stripped off

Sadness hovered over the place

The vigilant watchman is sleeping with a whore

To live or to die is the same

For they both lost a meaning

The mad man in our village could not answer

Why we had to commit suicide

And give a cold shoulder to the godless heaven

Arabs of bad blood gave Agamemnon the sands

Ferdinand de Lesseps resurrected again

Had a toast of champagne with the new Pasha

Waved for the scum of the earth

Crossing Suez canal to the desert of Arabia

Sheikhs of Arabia drinking mugs of espresso

Whispered in each other`s ears the news from Cheney

Had a few words with the devil`s advocate

And decided to say “NO” while their “YES” had already pushed the button

The rains in Kirkuk washed the gloom of the earth

But rainbow never showed up

For the red prevailed

It is war , carrying an obsession of mongers

Many men will die, sang the troubadour,

Arabs

Kurds

Torkomans

Many men will die      



March was an eye witness

And its nineteenth was the first to burn.

My little sister woke up in the early morning

She said Mrs. Mallaby of the yesterday's bedtime story

Met her in a dream and was all alone

In her hundredth birthday,

There was no post card

No birthday cake with hundred candles

No umbrella for the rainy Sundays

No kitten mewed at her door.

March was an eye witness

And its nineteenth was the first to burn.

Apache

Cluster bombs

Scud missiles

White phosphorous

Were all death retailers in Mesopotamia

The little Umm Qasr under the flame

Reminded us of Leningrad

Sweeping the young dead bodies with a broom

Making heaps of souls

Preparing a meal for the ravens

Shock and Awe quaked the earth

Buttons unleashed death into the eyes

That is enough, said my friend and shut the radio off,

Tell them, I said to him

Tell them we had enough

Death

Shock

Awe

Tell them the Tigris had enough bodies of assassinated dreams

Euphrates vomited the sense of clarity

Shatt-al-Arab wept the death of the palm trees

The Gulf engulfed all the bitterness

Hugged the two rivers

Buried the bodies of the dead

Washed their blood off the salty beaches

And listened to the troubadour

Who was still singing,

Many men will die.

Many men will die.

March was an eye witness,

And its nineteenth was the first to burn.

--Safaa Sheikh Hamad

(Published at Poets Against the War.)  

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is agreat poem of a young poet. The poem in my opinion is a very clear and painstaking depiction of the tragedy in Iraq. I have googled the poet`s name and found few topics .Below is his email that I got from an old blog: alnawrass2003@yahoo.com

12:40 PM  

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