BAGHDAD: WHO KNOWS? 

Baghdad
You are a thorn in the eyes 
of a crucified victim
who seeks in death
a promise for rebirth

Baghdad 
you are a deserted home
a mercenary time
a captive pain
the loneliness of a bereaved woman wails 
across a wasteland

Baghdad 
The news bulletins had lied
about a victory that was nothing but our two faces
in disappointment and shame
you were steered from your true self
by false witnesses
by the speech of a blind skipper
and the slogans of one-eyed men

Oh!  Baghdad!
What a big lie your deceitful poets uttered!
I did not forget
nor will I forget your open heart
your most generous warmth and tenderness
we may reproach each other
we may lament
we may become angry
we may empathize with each other 
we may feel that we are cast off
to more than one time and place
without question . . . without reproach
without blood 
slipping from crevices in roads that withered
and twisted as a fire blazed in the hatred of a mad dog
searching for me in your ruins 
seeking what your graves' worms have left of me

but Baghdad
we will remain as we were
whether I live or die
whether you live or die
always you will remain a map
in my left pocket
a map which displays your blind eyes 
like two roads:
a road for me as I flee from you
and a road for the exile returning in a white shroud
with fire and ashes

Baghdad
You have turned into neighbourhoods of grey mud
of a briny river
of paper kites that no longer fill my sky

O face of a brunette who tempts me every evening
A bitter exhaustion in my sweat
O smile of a child
O oppressive fetters
O black fear . . . O shame sinking in mud

Baghdad
What do you want of me?
Your days have left nothing
except your death in my wound
except your wound sinking deep inside my heart
except the laughter of the executioner
How cruel is the death we share, Baghdad
yours and mine

Baghdad
Who knows?
We may be reborn in a dream 
a dream of a phoenix that will rise from fire and ash
We may be resurrected by a hope
waiting for its appointed time.
 

From the author's collection Aghani al-Haris al-Mut 'ab, Dar Su 'ad al-Sabah, Cairo, 1993 . [Not included in earlier editions]
 
 
 

BETWEEN TWO MARKS

Baghdad
How can a city like you shelter
such false witnesses betraying you
in dishonest poets and poems?

How can a city like you rise
above the cave's darkness 
in the eyes of a blind age
in the hands of an executioner?

Baghdad
How can a city like you remain silent?
and fail to recall the martyrs 
carrying their dream from village to village
and passing through your visions 
a ray of sun that still waits for dawn
beyond our festering wounds
beyond our decayed provisions?
How can you not ask?
How can you remain silent?  how . . . how . . .?

How did you accept this bloody silence?
How did you accept that your sons do not ask
about your lovers, who died for you?
about those exiled in foreign lands?
about all the platforms vibrating under their steps
and stained with their blood
and filled with the oath not to sleep
unless your promise is attained
in an hour of rebirth

Baghdad
Have you witnessed your dreams
destroyed by the executioner's hands?
Have your nights all withered,
become no more than a wasteland and locusts?

Baghdad
Who said the dead do not live
in the memory of their children and grandchildren?
Who said that those killed for you have died?
They will return tomorrow
in a feast of lighted candles.

From Akhir al-Darb, Dar Su'ad al-Sabah, Cairo, 1993 
 
 
 

EXILE'S AGONY

1
From when does my time begin?
from which promise?
which vow?
uttered by an idol whose firebrand I erected
I said to them: This is my homeland
an idol and firebrand of an idol
I believed in it
I grew with it
in this sorrow or that sadness
in the absence of my face caught 
between wakefulness and slumber
not recognizing myself except
in black silence and the ebony of  my eyes
except through the darkness of a night as white as a shroud
the ruler said: Be silent in the name of law
so I hushed up
he said: the desire to search for one's soul 
leads to death
and I said: it is death
he said:  the soul is prone to evil
and I said:
it is prone to evil but . . . I search for my homeland
he said: silence
so I hushed up 
and blamed my soul
the ruler spoke through me and was part of  me
and the judgment was a certain blood-stained question
 

2
This is the night of your winter in exile
even if  world's seven volcanoes ignite
you will not be warm
as you flee from one harbour to a harbour, as
you retreat deep in your dreams
perhaps a woman will warm your nights
perhaps you will find a land that will bury your sorrows
perhaps a sun will magnify your shadow
but you will never become warm
as long as your winter rules your heart
and exile lives within you 
you will not flee except from one exile to another exile.

From Durub fi al-Manfa, Dar Su'ad al-Sabah, Kuwait, 1996
 
 
 

SCREAM IN ALONG NIGHT 
 

1
My days are 
a black map
and gloomy lines circulating my pain
across blue roads on my arm
in my face
in wrinkles that persist through a bloody silence

. . . Here I am a road wallowing in the dark ambiguity of numbers
searching for a time that was ours
for a homeland where we lived
for a blind light like a labyrinth
I wish I could bury in it
my own time
my homeland
all of my dreams
so as not to be born
inside a promise, a vow or a number
which sums up my days
 

2
Once I chased my shadow
tried to catch it
to totally inhabit it
But when I bent over
it bent over like me
staring, like me, in a trace of my childlike face
that remained both landless and timeless.
 

3
Exile may force us to act in concert
to tell this or that lie
so that the wound may heal without a scar
But . . . 
But when we awake
and the wound opens its eyes
we discover we are nothing but a covey of grouse
which lost its way in darkness
we are nothing but effusive blood
nothing but stagnant water stagnant like penitence. 

From Durub fi-al-Manfa
 
 
 

THE SUN WILL RISE AGAIN

This is the age of evil men
the time of evil men. 
No wonder. The wicked incinerate my home
my country, my death.
No wonder. Baghdad is crucified
on one thousand and one walls
and every pregnant woman is stoned
so no one will be born
to seek revenge 
no wonder we are crucified . . . are stoned
or our unavenged blood
becomes the tale of our dead in "the marshes"
no wonder we are ignored 
when the sun rises

this is the time of evil men
This is time of men so evil
it's no wonder 
no one speaks about our tragedies
our dark nights
our bleeding eyes
no wonder even the news summary remains silent.

but in this age of evil men
we become another time growing
with thousands of suns rising from out of the blazing reeds 
in the darkness of "the marshes".

From Durub fi al-Manfa
 
 

ON THE WAY OF MIGRATION FROM BAGHDAD 

Baghdad chases me,
Besieges me at all edges of the mirror
It impounds me to exile, accuses me of cowardice
because I wanted to protect my face from my eyes 
so I promised myself to gouge out my eyes,
to shatter my mirror
so I could avoid seeing my new face
fleeing from me
because I shredded my tongue to pieces
and nailed my silence on every wall
on the fences of my homeland's prisons
because I promised all guards
to become more cowardly than even my homeland
too afraid to ask what they kept of my homeland
too afraid to ask what . . . ?
- Say it . . . say it
what else did they keep in my homeland
except corpses pregnant with decay?
---------
---------
---------
[three lines omitted by the censor]

Forgive me Baghdad
if I came to you mutilated . . . mute
more barren than the desert's bareness
more miserable than burning desert's sands
for the border guards my homeland
stripped me even of my skin and flesh
even of my dream not to be born in the wounds
they amputated the ten digits of my hands
the ten digits of my feet
I did not know
why our great homeland's guards honoured me
a broken pen
and a notebook's cover?

-----
---- [three other lines to be omitted by the censor]
-----

Baghdad,
black land like the colour of disease
If I come to you once more
slam your gates shut in my face
bar your gates to the desert
the bareness of the desert
and the salt of the desert, but
continue to remain a promise
a thought
a window which may sum up some day
all of my sky

From Abwab ila al-Bayt al-Dayyiq, Riad El-Rayyes, London, 1990 
 
 
 
 

TOMORROW, IF THEY ERUPT*

They say:  our home has turned grim
every thing inside it is strange
everyone in it is a stranger 
even the echo of our voices sounds strange
even the stars have gathered their glitter
and emigrated far from our land
even the sky has changed
leaving no paths in its space for a dreamer 
even the dreams of our young children have rusted
keeping no heartbeat in their hearts
They say:  the laughter I left at my child's bed has aged
sins have devoured its innocence 
They say:  fire has died out in the eyes of people in my city 

They say and how wretched is what they say
For our home is sad 
With ruins howling in its desolation
Children have deserted our roads
And the silence of our people is strange

They say and how wretched is what they say
no men live any longer in my city 

But I do know, my little city
The sweat of men at noon
The feel of a bread slice placed on a mat
I know that my little girl still weaves
through her dreams a plaid 
For a glorious . . . grand wish.
 

I know, my city,
that a sun still waits
for a dawn behind the blindness of  your eyes

I know, my city,
How many countless bitter wounds
bleed under broken wings
but I know, my city, 
what looms behind our sad home
what exists beyond its terrifying silence
what tomorrow is hidden beyond the bend of the road
I know, my city, 
I know the eyes of men in my city never sleep
In their silence are burning mines
If they erupt tomorrow
A new day will bow to them.

From Akhir al-Darb, Dar Su 'ad al-Sabah, Cairo, 1993. 
Translator's Note: According to a hand-written copy, the author chose before his death the alternative title of "To Baghdad". An earlier, slightly different version of the poem was published in  Khatawat fi al-Ghurbah (1965) and in Diwan Buland al-Haydari, Dar al-'Awdah, Beirut, 1974, 1980, under the title "To My City".
 
 

INVOCATION 

Two damaged arteries
the first in the heart
the other in my leg
what remains of my life has no remains
O God, free me from my shackles
from this night decaying in the depths of my soul
from footsteps still fleeing with me
from one exile to another
in a place or in no place
O My Lord
Lord of the universe
save me from my dream to return
one day to my Iraq
for what remains of my country has no remains
it has, like me, no remains
except in those black letters like crows
or in yellowing pages

From al-Majalla magazine, London 1995 
and the collection Durub fi al-Manfa, 1996
 
 

THE RETURN OF THE VICTIM

O people . . . what is there between me and Sa 'id  Ibn Jubayr  . . .  For whenever I decide to sleep he grabs me by the throat 
                                        - al-Hajjaj

In land that had no room
except for the echoed voice of the ruler 
who governs in the name of Satan
he yells that nothing exists except my shadow
I will preserve nothing
except my shadow
and the glitter of the drawn sword 
and unavenged blood
and the echo of my voice:
Trust me. I will hang your head at the citadel's gate
I will pluck out your eyes
I will cut off your hands
I will allow no tear to be shed for your sake 
And I will maintain the night imposed over all the land's alleys
- But, Hajjaj,
as you know me
I will remain on a ray waiting, under candlelight, for a promise 
It may become a sun
a moon
a river
a dawn that rises from the eyes of a hanged victim 
at the citadel's gate 
for I know that the murderer who seeks aid from he murdered
will spread in the world's memory
news about an unknown time
time when the murderer wishes to be the murdered one 

- Executioner, kill him . . . kill him . . . kill him
scatter the flesh of Sa'id Ibn Jubayr
in all of the land's alleys
to the wolves 
to the dogs 
I, alone, will uplift my glory by your death
I, alone, will illuminate the land's alleys
with the eyes of an executioner or a jailor
I will spread across my land the darkness of a thousand graves
to a thousand places
I, alone, will cover you with yellow moss
and will, in Friday's sermons, tear up every tongue 
that asks about Ibn Jubayr
- But, Hajjaj,
As you know me
I will remain all over
here and there
in a thousand places
as a promise
a thunder,
a cloud
a rain that blooms happiness 
and will bring forth my death in your death
history will grow from a wound in my hand
from an unknown time 

From Akhir al-Darb, 1993, and Durub fi al-Manfa 1996
 
 

Translated by Salih J. Altoma

Translator's Note: This poem revolves around two historical figures: al-Hajjaj (661-714), whowas known for his ruthlessness as a governor of Iraq and Sa'id Ibn Jubayr (ca.665-713/714). Ibn Jubayr, a highly respected religious scholar was brutally executed by al-Hajjaj for his participation in an anti-government revolt.  According to early historians "al- Hajjaj showed a strange agitation soon after the death of Ibn Jubayr" and the mutilation of his body. It is reported al-Hajjaj was haunted at night by Ibn Jubayr's ghost and his words "Enemy of God! Why have you killed me?" and that al-Hajjaj was heard uttering "What is there between me and Sa'id Ibn Jubayr". Other details are also provided regarding Ibn Jubayr's open defiance and the statements he made (in al-Hajjaj's presence) before his execution including "God, don't allow al-Hajjaj to order another death after me".  See Shiv Rai Chowdhry, Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, Delhi: The Delhi University Press, 1979: 208-211. This episode has been the subject of a number of contemporary Islamic works which present Ibn Jubayr as a martyr or one of the righteous scholars (studies, and fictional or dramatic adaptations). 

Al-Haydari's poem is based primarily on the episode cited above, but it also incorporates allusions to some of al-Hajjaj's own stern warnings to the people of Iraq: "I am he that scatters the darkness", "I see before me heads ripe for the harvest and the reaper and I am the man to do it." It is obvious that, by adapting such elements, al-Haydari sought to focus not on a religious subject but on a universal political theme concerned with the abuse of power and oppressive rulers. It is patently clear that what he had in mind about the time he wrote the poem (1990s) was the current situation in Iraq and Saddam in particular.