Iraqi Poetry - Modernity and Communication
Soheil Najm
3- Qubadi Jalizada
(Born 1953 in Suleimania.
Published books: • * Fog, 1990, • * The Gallaws of Paradice 1998)
Where art Thee My God
Hundreds of time to Thee I came
And knocked on Thy door
O', where art Thee My god?
Where art Thee?
No one abandons his home for such a long time,
No one!
Where should I come to see you My God?
I am in a hurry!
Why don't you come back home?
What flood you've been called for
To calm down?
To what inferno have you descended
To put down it's fire?
Which dying heart
Are you attending?
Which tomb (and they are many)
Of your martyrs and servants
You're looking down upon
To cry, bitterly cry?
Where art Thee My God?
Which kindergarten you're in now
Washing the eyes of darkness with light,
Filling the laps of children with toys, and
Packing the pockets of butterflies
With candies?
Hundreds of time to Thee I came.
Why do you abandon
Your home in such a way?
Your servants are unfaithful to you.
O', God! They are betraying you!
And from the tops of the domes
They turn up their faces toward us,
We the innocents,
And shout:
O', God! May you burn their livers!
O', God! Let their children be orphaned!
O', God! May their wives be widowed!
Stop abandoning your home;
Those who occupied it in your absence
Are mobilizing their armies
To wage war against beauty
And sink the down and fingertips of Art
In cataracts of blood.
They defame music.
They assault the rose buds.
They amputate the nipples, and
By your name, after your signature and seal
They legalize murder.
They put grenades in the hands of children.
They plant the breast of the new mothers
With needles!
Come back soon!
Your foul servants are driving the hundreds
To loathe you.
They put their hands on the backs of our children
And push them to stone you!
Your disciples, residents of your houses,
Keep telling as:
God is nothing but a bomber.
God is nothing but a terrorist.
God is nothing but plague.
God is nothing but the hell!
To Thy home do come back.
Prayer rugs are soaked in blood.
Niches of the mosques are planted with death.
Between every other page of the Koran there hides
A bloody sword.
Between every other word there
A mine is waiting.
Between every other letter.. a skull!
It's too late My God,
It's too late!
(Translated from Kurdish by Majid Alhydar, an Iraqi poet and translator.)
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