Salah Hassan
salah.h@wanadoo.nl
Translated by Sinan Antoon
When the war starts
I will need you
I will be an
abandoned object
and you will be cold.
When the war starts
I will need to touch
your hands
because fire will be
the last farewell
and the high black
walls
will echo my choking
voice
Do you hear me?
I am behind this
black wall
singing an old song
about the plains
When the war starts
I will need you
I have a razor blade
I do not know if I
will swallow it
but it is bloody
and drops of blood
are trickling
from my throat.
When the war starts
I will need you
Do I resemble myself
now
as I did twenty years
ago?
Can I jump over the
little hurdles
as I did when I was
only twelve?
Can anyone behind
this black wall
hear me?
Is this a hospital or
a school?
I can no longer
remember where I was
when the missiles
fell
on grown men,
fire and burning
children
This barbaric
celebration with defeated soldiers
made me realize that
it is war.
It is a departure
of no concern to
anyone
Were you among the
well-wishers
when I, bloody-eyed,
boarded the train
with defeated
soldiers?
When the war starts
I will need you
but I will be an
abandoned object
and you will be cold.
Can you see the pain?
Tell them about the
pain
the pain of grown men
about where it pains
They do not believe
that pain can be
exorbitant
They do not believe
that I was behind the
black wall
trying to awaken the
children and grown men
from their death
All these insects
multiplying around
my rotting bed
where did they come
from?
Did my eyes fall?
Why do I see only
lifeless children
and hard-working
insects?
Is this my skin
blackened and
sloughed from
my limbs?
Where was I?
And why am I so
lonely?
Will bombs fall
again?
Oh my hand
where is it?
I move my hand, but
do not see it
Have I become a
corpse
as insects multiply
around my rotting
bed?
Do you hear shots
or am I imagining?
When war starts
I will need to touch
your hands
because fire will be
the last farewell
When war starts
I will be an
abandoned object
of no concern to
anyone
13 February 2003
Published first in
this translation in
Banipal No 22,
Spring 2005, translated from the poem’s publication in Nizwa
magazine,
Issue No 39, Oman,
2004
e-mail
Dear Allah,
I don't have to speak to You
Like Mohammed al Maghout did
Nor like Fadhil al Azzawi
Now i have e-mail
And You can answer me
By a click on reply
Many questions bother me
And You must give an answer
In the meantime I have become fourtyfive
And I think I am wise enough
To speak to You about Your duties
What are You doing all day?
Do You read the papers?
Do you listen to the radio?
Didn't You hear anything in the Fridayprayers?
About Iraq?
The land where Your name is praised
Why do You do nothing?
Are You dead?
Is it only Your statue that we see?
I just want to know
Because in the meantime I have become fourtyfive
And I don't know yet what is your function in my life
Here you have all my contact information
Fax and telephone number
And e-mail address
I await an extensive explanation form You
I have no time to waist
With You
With deep respect
:: Salah Hassan wrote an e-mail to Allah, but what he got back
in return
... was hatemail! His poem was published in a Moroccan
newspaper, and
was after that - without his knowledge - been published on a
website. He
received about 75 pages with reactions, positive ones also, but
also
messages of people who wished him blind, deaf, and paralised, to
subsequently live long. He was openly threatened with death.
Salah:
/"These people are claiming the role of Allah. They say: we
posses the
wisdom. They are extremists and they are angry about my poem
because it
is directed to extremists. The extremists who make Iraq unsafe
with
their bombattacks."/
|
|
Baghdad
Baghdad
You are a mother country or
a field of fire?
You are a landscape that
there is to destroy
or stairs of victims
that it is not satiated of
his death?
Baghdad
You are a basket that sinks
and one does not fill but of
life?
Perhaps it is this one your
celebration
or your death?
These fire sweetmeat
they are for your dead
children
or for the last celebration
of your slughtering?
Then, death.
we will back to the place
from where we have come
To the deserts and the
infinite
Waiting for a new prophet.
|
|
|
-Running away from the family
It wasn't a bad
idea
when I dreamt of a house
and lived in it,
it wasn't a bad
idea
when I dreamt of a
woman
and married her,
it wasn't a bad
idea
when I drew four
kids
and fathered them,
it wasn’t, either,
a bad idea
when I drew a back
door for the house
and ran away
through it.
-The Statue Of
The Poet
It’s me
who watched the
angels
and saw them
dancing
around my statue.
i saw the pigeons
pecking through a
hole in my shirt
and building a nest
near my heart,
i heard madmen
saying …
the poet is the
creature running away
to his certainty
and they add:
madness is a
defective leap to the impossible..
i saw the widows
searching in my
face
for men gone to war
and were never
back,
i saw men looking
in
the dust for the
star they wasted,
i saw them
going around me
without wings or singing,
i saw the
photographers
with their
equipments that keep
the place wakeful
looking for a
reason for the sadness
in my laughter..
It’s me
who at the end of
the night
watched the
drunkards
and saw them
urinating on my statue.
-Receptrion
Party
Perplexed, in a
dated make up
like a
Shakespearean character
my death is
chasing me.
In spite of his
grim appearance
and his concern for
details
his steps, for a
mysterious reason,
seem uncertain.
-May be because of
the new shoes-
It hurts to see him
confused
like this.
to let him relax
i 'll invite him
tonight
to have drink with
me…
i’ll close my eyes
to let him put
poison
in my cup..
I may pretend going
to the bath
-I don't want to
see
his quivering hand-
to let him achieve
his task ..
my life has failed
i don't want my
death
to fail.
Translated By :Soheil
Najm
Life bomb
With blood I begin
And with it I end everyday.
Every morning I go down
To the scrap metal shop,
I take my head off and empty it
of the splinters
From yesterdays bombs .
Later on I wash off the dried
blood
Of my imagination .
I have a feeling that everything
is mined .
I press the computers keyboard
And I hide behind the wall
Before it explodes .
I cannot light a cigarette
Without thinking about the
explosions .
For me , everything can explode
,
The telephone , the coffee maker
,
The ring at the door , letters .
I feel that my body is a bomb
And may explode .
With blood I begin
And with it I end everyday .
Everyday I go to bed crawling .
Wishing not to wake up ,
I don’t want to goon living
In this life bomb .
