A Birthday Message In the Rain

I dreamt a pigeon's feather
and it uttered your eternal name

there on the wet road home
it sat in the rain,
immersed in wait.

Cringing at the sight of my tires
never tiring the burden of words
you spelt in a rainbow
on its back
picking its feathers clean of the confused mud
clearing its sanity away

“no haste...someday
you’ll arrive here too
in your tatters of a spirit
and tattoos of long-lived longing
engraved
with the plume of a brown pegion
roosting in the rain
dragging drizzling letters to your doorstep…
Yes, it’s I, your father…again…
Happy Birthday…”

The Truth She Invented

Don’t talk too loud;
they do not want to hear the truth of what you saw
because they didn’t invent it…

Don’t use those words
they pulled them out of the local dictionary
three massacres ago…they will not make sense anymore.

Darling, be quiet.
Think your thoughts…in silence…
This telephone has ears…

The books of history
will tell the son
that his father killed for ‘liberty.’
They will not talk
of the other son
who watched through the window
his father's spurting life
stain the concrete patio of their home
permanently...
for reasons he will never know
because he couldn't invent them…
He will have his own words for the local dictionary.

These books of science
will tell you
that its necessary
some must go
so others
whose Truths matter more
stay on…

That’s another truth,
and you didn't invent it…

There... close to the sun-filled window
where the old old trees bare their arms
for the weary traveller
of winding questions
as he tries to discover a bosom of rest,
lies a stone-filled grave.

In it, the shades of centuries-old green visions
are buried
under the very feet of those who land there,
soaked in crimson truth,
like no one invented…
truth, that even you
cannot fathom!

Male Middle Eastern

The smell of freedom
came with peach;
orange-like soap suds
under a low-ceiling
of showering promises.

A small iron-framed window
in the tile wall
into the dark unknown
its handle too wet
for fresh minds to grip.

Faces awashed with the assumed known
flicking mental floaters of
easy experimentation
into endlessness...

It all came to blossom
many seas later;
here.

The specimens of by-products
of time's tests
lined up at my
roach-filled
residence.

Some blowing dreams of
fall-like aspirations
into the remaining sunlight,
gripping moments like
dripping chocolate on ice.

And most blew bad mouth breath
into contaminated fish bowls
and observed the fish sink....

Um Ali

There were dreams for a house
scratched on paper …
at odd moments when the corner
of an available room was free
and the light sufficient.

Dreams for a home
while on the run
from dream-killers
and home-destroyers.
Thoughts of reunion
under a roof
when blood mattered
and distance had drawn too long…

Her scratches as emblematic as
sunshine on sunflowers;
groping for a reality
loudly passing away.

Silently scratched on thin scrap paper
supported by thick books of thought
that were very different
filled with skeleton letters that danced to
a homesick tune…

Hiding from the moonlight
under eroding bus stop signs
escaping the end
though it loomed
as close as the following second…

Silently stopping within a sunflower second

as the dream-killers
seize the scratches

rip the paper house to pieces

shredding all dreams of homecoming
shooting the last 'different' thoughts
back into the skulls of snoozing sunflowers
before the sun could
even dream of a horizon…

-Um Ali was an Iraqi communist who was hunted down, detained, tortured and eventually murdered by Saddam’s regime, in the early Eighties. In her run from one hideout to another, escaping Saddams 'gestapo', she dreamed of building a family home.

Occupied...Forgotten

lost places
lost times
trampled on 
by accessories of strategy 

never thought
never found
never saw

the play fields
children's toys 
the memories 
walks down sun-lit lanes
arms entwined

warmth like freshly-brewed tea
with a golden-brown hint of nostalgia 

lost dreams
uprooted
and flung into the Tigris

ripped earth as red
as the blood of the

lost years

expunged
then dried 
then cracked by tank wheels
wet with more blood 
and then left to rot

lost words
lost glances
lost meanings 
all extricated
stuffed into a khaki 
knapsack 
and thrown into the Euphrates
lost moments 
when tea was passed 
and the earth warm 
under our bodies 
where we sat 

laughter
like the sun had suddenly 
gotten the gist of the joke
and shade
like paradise 
had descended into Zawaraa
in an instant of confusion

lost
stolen
occupied
forgotten...

Dead House

In the hallows of my soul
the brown birds sing
One tried to build a nest of stone
and broke a wing
The windows of my eyes are shattered
a dead house I stand
and all of God’s sun will not bring in
enlightenment…

Too long the ghosts of tomorrow have wandered
unabated
through these aging walls
too long
they have made this arid structure
their home

They walk this soul in silence
for them the brown birds sing
hating transition
unlike me
they already know
there will never be spring…

And the Ball Rolled into a Baghdad Dumpster…

The children shouted for the game they could lose
and palms were raised
where dust drops dripped
and voices booed.

And it was up to Sami
who just turned ten
to venture into the world of Baghdad trash
to recapture the trophy
for a part-time glory
perhaps…

So he stepped towards the pile of thrills and woes
the smell of the rot remotely touching his toes
an indefinite heap of suffocated shocks,
end-snipped stories, strangled facts, and stifled sorrows…

Tales of beings coming to life from inside the rust
of deformed oil drums,
rumors of things lashing out to cut all those who touch
the twisted trash,
these tugged at his hair and spat into his buzzing ears,
but it couldn’t happen to Sami!

Not with the football team jeering, swearing
and repeating his name…

His eyes peering, heart, almost disappearing, he crouched on the dirt
and extended a tired, somewhat-scratched arm
into the maze of unknown hate…
And he found the round thing, and gripped it!

With all the pride a ten-year old Baghdadi could gather
all the relief that his mother could no longer offer
all the passion that wining a game would promise…a small but such meaningful game!

He turned to the crowd
a tower of pride
the thrill dancing out of his once weary eyes…

And the silence that followed was smiting
the unsaid words in faces around him biting
the children’s tears already streaming
some crying
some screaming…

And Sami eyes went down
to the round
creature in his hands…
her eyes were closed in pain
her lips firmly shut in refrain
and her rotting cheeks almost gone…

so he dropped the head…
and fainted.

Note: This story took place when a number of children were playing football in a Baghdad suburb next to a neglected dumpster that had not been attended to in years.

The Day I Lost My Hair

The day I lost my hair
mother had dragged me out to shop

the wait for lulls in incessant crossfire
had not come to a stop
and the children were hungry
for more than just candy

check points where faces
had traces of
trashed deaths
dying answers in stillborn questions
struggling to extract
the last breath of a meaning
for the wait

it was then that the shots hailed
into the skull of a walking doll
and life stopped
right there in the remaining footprints
of the once skipping child

it was right there
that her hair came down
with a thud
on the dirt

And I walked home…
Without my mother
Who was still shopping, not stopping

and I sheared my head
and shred the tresses
into the waiting mirror…


Thikra who was once Iraq's # 1 ballerina still lives in Iraq with her mother. This is what happened when they shot a child at a checkpoint 'by accident' in front of her...

This Torn Map

Pinned to my heart…
this torn map and bleeding
nostalgia drips at my severed valves

Lashes yearning for the blind white to cover
all the crimson
It grips the pit of pain where my stomach is
And nausea now has no name

It comes in flashes of red around Baghdad
in flames at the crying Shrine of Mousa Al-Khadim
while Abu Hanifa descends into flakes of
black despair

They both want out…

"These are not our people.
They have murdered us in our graves. "

Pinned to my brain
the image of love
that will never be again

Baghdad nights now have gouged eyes.
the tunnels are endless
and the sunlight of infinity
that once shone through its lenses
has been crushed with
explosions of unanswered questions...

Pinned to this spirit
the dawn of doom
and the weight of eternity that comes with the point of no return.

Under the earth

Under the earth
they look upwards
the poet
and he who tried to pick the word
and she who tried to dissect it

She who appreciated with tears
her bed sores still carved in her back
even under the earth

He who enjoyed iced-coffee
as he savored every character
and flipped the torched memories
of places touched
into flurries of ruminations
that rested on lowered metal rimmed
glasses

She who would fume with passion
her red-rimmed eyes
pale forehead and rosy cheeks
scratching the meaning of every word
into being

She who appreciated gardens of love
where words were flamboyant
and smiles full of letters

Now all under the earth
together weep
not at the life missed
But the earth that is no more sweet
it tenses up on their dead senses

The blood and salty sweat it is fed
has turned the soil into endless death

After the last death…
There should be no more deaths…
But not with war…where the dead awake to relive death…

Baghdad Fridays

On Fridays the sun shone,
like it never would on any other.
I would have called it 'Sun Day',
but we rested on on that day,
while the sun kissed our skins.

On Fridays mosques' voices were more vibrant.
People left their flip-flops at the door.
Some said it was tradition.
Some said it was to cool their feet,
on the marble floor,
in a place of prayer.

On Fridays, cars honked greetings
and people smiled back.
They flocked at markets,
and hugged and kissed,
and compared prices.

On Fridays tea was always hot.
Under the sun, our Istikans oozed of brown,
warm to the touch,
sweet as freshly handpicked dates.

On Fridays we watched the evening news
and reflected.
War after war,
we expected
better days…

On Fridays today, under the sun,
they slaughter women,
and rape children.

On Fridays today, mosques turn into infernos,
and the rubber of the flip-flops burn the nostrils
of the bodies on the charred marble floors...

On Fridays now, the streets are quiet.
The silence bites at the ears of travelers,
who move in the shadows unseen,
praying to reach home whole...

On Fridays now, people drink dark coffee.
From one memorial to its neighbor,
the bitter taste becomes the custom.

On Fridays now, people fear the evening news.
War after war…,
they wonder if they have seen the worst…
yet…

Traveling North In Iraq

And somewhere from across the roofs
a voice called my name;
maybe it was God…incognito.
The skies of Kirkuk
smiled back in Turkish…

And the dome of the tomb of the sacrificed soldier
shone in the rain
where doves danced to the drumming of drops
as if to make light of the grave questions

It also rained where Jonah
had laid his head to rest.
That was in Mousl,
and the dirt road around his shrine was as ancient
as the twisted finger that pointed towards it.

The mosque's windows gathered all of us close.
Our faces whispered words of warm nourishment
and it was copious!

Father closed his eyes in the shade,
and we crouched at his feet to steal the love
he so generously generated…

We finally stood for the family photo
of a lifetime…
The beams of teeth and stretched eyelids was genuine
despite the camera’s clicking attempts
at discrediting love…

It persisted…That was love in Northern Iraq…

BOOTS

The red earth on the boots
reminded me of my roots
the color of Iraq…
the blood inside cried,
yet I couldn’t touch it
my contamination phobia forbade me…
But my eyes could reach out
and try to touch the fluttering souls
that emerged from them…

For days we pronounced the names of the fallen
some just starting,
most not even
and some towards the end of their journey.
The ghosts bellowed back…
Some of us heard them and closed their ears
some of us shut our eyes with tears…

On the field they towered, shoulders hanging.
The shoes of the children around stared back.
They now spoke the same universal language of loss
and together they struggled to get the message across…

The mothers’ voices rose high.
Above the crowds,
their sorrows soared
and yet select indifferent eyes
just shrugged it off
as hysteria…

I spoke to someone who believed he could wave a flag in my face
and render me smaller…
What good is a flag if the bearer can’t honor its color?
His weak words of might in military power
only made me stand taller…

A father was more resilient –that’s what makes the matter of 'tough' men…
“I don’t question the politics” he said
He couldn’t…
His son was dead...

I read the names of Iraqi civilian victims and fallen GIs at an 'Eyes Wide Open' event which portrayed the boots and shoes of the scores and scores of fallen humans.

A Summer View From my Baghdad Balcony

Their khubuz, their abbayaas and their football,
floated down the road like a dusty dream.
The only one who witnessed it all,
was the thrush on the telephone wire.
The voice of the Muezzin
spoke of war.
He whispered secrets
in his clear shouts for prayer,
but nobody had the slightest doubt,
busy walking the streets of life,
they never bothered about,
an exhausted Iraq,
pining for the perfume
of hot khubuz,
shivering at the sight of
Hopscotch and chattering children.
A football in the air,
kicked the thrush's dream into pink pieces in the sunset...
The light steps under the abbaya
are fast asleep,
as I stare
at a rare tranquility...
Iraq
at twilight...

Human Pain

"Where you there?
I mean when the bombs fell?
I heard they fell in your area too.
Sorry, I couldn't provide
nail-bitten fingers as ear plugs.
It's not the worst of human pain...you know.
Sorry if the dust made your nostrils itch...
Sorry if it choked you...
But then,
you had left choking...
I remember you behind the window,
came to get me,
that close you were ,.
and that much I'd wanted to go.
I loved you;
Love you.
Forgive me for not coming.
At times I wonder what a stroke must've felt like.
I practice holding my breath in the bathroom
as long as I can
I give up...
Forgive me but,
I'd rather wait for God.
Maybe he'll send me the handbook
beforehand,
the one you waited for...
and never got."

For my beloved Aunt Khadija who died shortly before the first Gulf War (US Agression against Iraq)

This Is How It Is -Kerbala 1991

He was buying rockets,
this young man I respect,
making 'cool contracts'!
And my brother was helping
fire them...
My best friend, Nouha,
way out in Kerbala,
saw them fall...
Out of the rubble, she crawled
and left,
her nephew, her aunt
and her mother
underneath forever...

This is the true story of my friend, Nouha who lost half of her family when the Iraqi army was ordered to turn against its own people during the first uprising after the first Gulf War in 1991.

African Garden in Mid-Summer

It was a different world…
with pink tips
and smaller corners
It had leapt out of a crystal bowl
just set on the table…

Zinnahs’ eyes stared back
when the hedges barked
and the leaves clapped at the distant human laughter
she could not recognize

It lay by the sea
across the road
from where we crouched
where tree stumps had stood to protect our backs
against the approaching ocean winds

There the rocks were brown and hard
the waves splashed against the palms
of our slipping hands
in quest of an answer

Pink it was
all over
The hibiscus dreamt it in the African night
and it landed on Zinnah’s lashes
on that sky-filled afternoon

It spoke a new language to us
as luscious as an unpeeled papaya
and green as an unopened gift

All the promises of endless books
on seas of shelves
and fragrances of all
forgotten gardens
it would let us have...

As I lay Face Down

First, the dark wet dirt, the hint of ammonia, reminded…
It was why I was there, face down…this dirt…my dirt…my land

The stench of red…was that blood from my nose?
I remembered Jasim’s ‘shaved-off’ nipples at Abu-Ghraib…

Far away, Fatima’s face was crying…
Mohamed, tugging at her nipple, will surely miss me…

This foreign sole of a ‘made-in the US/China-Manufactured’ now familiar boot
had kicked this dust into my eye…Was that my blood from my eye?

The circular edge of his crushing iron weapon reminded…
Rancid sweat…I could smell it again…and again…

The journey has been long…it may have now come to an end…

In the eighties, they told us that our enemies had arrived from the East…
I sat, well into the nights, at the gates,
translating ‘made-in-the US’ manuals on war…

We had to protect our next of kin, our Arab brethren,
those in 'Aagaals', from the Yellow Winds…
Some people said it was not about winds…
They said it was to protect this dirt…and all that lay underneath the dirt…

Then there was the big WAR, and the rubber from our torn boots trailed
in the sand to the South…
They pushed and pushed us further down…
towards the waters of the Gulf…but we never saw water…

For fourteen days, I broke pieces of the molded bread they had thrown weeks before,
and made my meal…
Tarik, who couldn’t…just wouldn’t…
Well, he made his last bed there in the trench…

Then the shells showered our tracks in the sunlight…
And I wondered…if Tarik had gone the easy way…
When my sweat prints wet the rusted gates of Baghdad…
my eyes had gone to my feet for the first time since we drifted North,
…my small toe was gone…

Fatima did not seem to mind
…this missing piece…;
Ahmed had not yet arrived …

He did when The Starvation began…
For 12 long years it ran...
His big eyes: all the interrogation an infant could muster…
I prayed that Fatima’s breasts would not betray him…
I prayed he would not bloat like the rest, his age…
I prayed…

And now this dirt…in my face…
and the iron depression on my neck…
The foreign boot digging into my back
the man above me, screaming with fright!
His words as alien as his eyes…

Where did they come from?
Why have they come?
For this dirt…or what lies underneath this dirt…
But we were supposed to protect it…

Jasim came home to die…

Will they bring what’s left of me, home to die?
Who will tell Fatima?
Who will tell Fatima…?
Who will tell Fatima?….

The Story of an Iraqi soldier/citizen...

As History Weeps Over Your Remains…

The smile of Nimrud broke with the last fire
She looked on, teeth charred…
at the descendents of her Assur in pieces
Not in her wildest ivory dreams
could this nightmare have proceeded

Long ago Hamurabi had set the rules
only to watch them
break
He had held fast
to all he hoped for
generations to last-
except for this one

This time the fall of Baghdad
came with an infinite bang…

Turkish Pajamas

That’s how we lived…
incredulous of pajama powers
and ‘dishdasha’ hours
stuffed with Turkish nostalgia
dripping of toothpaste on the morning sink.

Then came the ‘kahi’ and we sat and ate,
the syrup dripping from our plates,
in our bedroom attire.

Ours was a smell of mint
and fresh water,
fried eggs and hot khubuz.
It all floated in Aunt Khadija’s kitchen
and finger played at  
the next door neighbor’s windows

Ours were the roses red in the heat of a mild spring,
heads tilted, smiling back at our shining Istikans.
The tea was never enough!

Ours was the crisp morning air
touching our cheeks gently,
reminding, it would only be there for so long…

Smiles and teeth as bright as goodness
Bread as warm as the
golden hearts of those years
that never faltered…

Sometimes in the cold
when the snow comes to rest
I wonder…
Was it all a Turkish delight in a dream…

Shopping List

Shoes for Zayoon;
a purse for Mama;
Jeans for Ahmed and…
a flower for Dad;

kisses in the air, for the chair
he last sat on,
and words for the last bookshelf he reached for;
memories for the couch;
more kisses for that brown couch;
and tears for the breakfast table-
especially the spot where he last rested his palms;

DVDs for Hassooni-
maybe a stuffed ‘Pooh Bear’?

an embrace for Alyaa;
make-up for Alyaa –my first ever…last ever-hopefully- sister-in-law;

thoughts for Dad’s favorite card game on the very same old computer;
clasps for the mouse he fumbled with and caresses for the mouse pad;
more kisses for where his fingerprints were never eliminated…

hugs for his ghost;
cheek-rubs for his unshaven face;
and more blown kisses for his pipe fumes;

an agenda for Dad -the one Ahmed decided he couldn't use...;
time slots for the afterlife…
when we will finally meet…
All…finally meet...

God's Creatures

Those amongst us,
the godly ant-steppers,
watching the life wriggle
out of an ant…

Those within,
the god-deniers,
sucking the shock out of bewildered eyes
at something different…,
oblivious of screaming antennas…

In someone’s pockets,
from holes of boredom,
trickle the ants, tired and struggling.

Theirs is a life,
granted by God,
ignorant of pious killers
and ardent atheists…

Theirs is a faith,
no godly worshipper will ever know,
a way,
a non-believer dreams to attain…
in vain.

Those precious ants…amongst us.

My Silent Smile

My silent expressions
underneath these merciless skies,

Eyes, steadfast in their shock
and smiles of wonder at the unknown you carry
in your pale Western hands...

Eyes, fixated on a camera lens
staring at your expectations of my surrendering a story,
and yet nothing comes.


But the blood on the street tells it
and the bodies torn apart,
struggling to release their inner selves...
Their faces, expressionless...

Friends of enemies,
strangers with elongated machines
balanced on strong shoulders...

Maybe you will tell the world at large
my silent story.

My silent horror witnessed,
faster than the speed of light through your camera lens,
stripping me of all sense.


Senseless now I am.


That half erect house you see
had a kitchen.
The meat on the charred table... is my brother…


The hallows of my father’s car over there
had known fine days of sun on the way to school.
He’d puff a smile through the rearview mirror at my eager eyes
above dog-eared books…


The smoke you see now
through the remains of its structure
is only because…
those skies up there will only talk war.


That infant in the swaddle
could not talk either,
when your guns did the words for his small aspirations…


You tore my brothers limbs to shreds
his rarest fetal nightmares never told him…


But I...I can still struggle in the face of your camera
and try to tell you my story.


You see you had smiled,
and in my culture I must smile back...

Even if you intend to kill me with that long gun…
You...like to call a camera...

Minutes

Before the sun sets on the other world
Minutes accumulate on my cell phone
Pleading reassurance
That all are alive
And I am missed, by some

Before the sun sets on the other world,
The words reach out to grasp the warmth
Of the going rays
In ways
Only the East can spell

Minutes and time zones
Love disperses amongst the lines of
Missed emotions
And longing

Fingers betray the anguish
As phone handles quiver in their grasp

One last word, Mama
Hear me
I love you.
Did you know that, recently?

And who’s home and who has broken their fast and prayed for me?
And who missed the last car bomb and made it to the Iftar table?
Who smiled at God’s food and then shed a tear for all the empty tables?

Minutes are money…the corporations know and say that…
For them, the wars and the empty dishes…
For them, we work on working your future Iftars to ashes...

Was that my brother’s voice behind you?
Does he remember my name?
I have changed…but not my name…

Names are constant
Love is constant and so is sibling tension
Cell phone minutes are not.

Tell him I love him.
I have a minute to tell him I love him.
I have all the minutes the corporate world can steal
to hear him tell me
He loves me.

Palestinian

I am the cause
I am its blood and checkpoint tolerance

I am the refugee tents in tatters
I am the soiled headless doll
in that ditch
where your made-in-the-US missile fell

I am the cross of Nativity
I am the bell toller
shot to death
I am the muezzin
whose voice was sniped
I am the holes in
the prayer rug
your machine gun shattered

I am the cause
I am the broken rooms in your bulldozer
I am the eyes you want to blind
I am the history
that will rise again

I am the cause
I am the ship that floats in hope
I am the sails that blow you away
I am the harbor you’ll never know
in my homeland

I am the cause

I Want Those Photos

I want those photos.
Alia stood grand;
the most beautiful Iraqi model we knew,
and met in San Francisco,
when the Iraqi Fashion House had a house…
She had more than one face, and a multitude of minds,
the psychiatrist, at Stanford, said…
but that did not make her less glamorous,
or her Babylonian clothes less glowing.

I really want those photos.
But the House fell down upon them.
It came down with a US missile,
that tore into Alia’s clothes,
and ripped the entity
of her Babylonian history!

Now, they’re nowhere to be found.
I can’t ask for them,
for now with the changes of times,
in my homeland,
the ‘insurgents’ will label them ‘haram’.

I also want to visit Ms. Siba,
in that old house, in Adhamia.
The one in the corner,
by the noisy highway,
where sometimes, we just couldn't sit on the patio,
at night
because car headlights flashed at our eyes…
But the house was rented to an ‘insurgent’.

Ms. Siba left this life, in Amman.
She still visits the house at night,
and tells him about Palestine.
He knows...
He tells her, ‘she keeps him going’ -but, does she?
‘Just spare the innocent lives!’, she cries…
He doesn’t listen.
His sister was raped, at Abu Ghraib,
and she still screams in his dreams…
The ‘insurgent’ is now immune to noise,
even from the nearby highway.

I want those fabrics…in those photos.
I really do…
I want to touch them.
I want to touch them and feel that something,
just one thing of the city I knew has survived…


Note: Alia was Iraq's # 1 model. She was schizophrenic. We all met her in person in 1980, while on a visit to the US -the Iraqi Fashion House had a traveling show.

A Note for Dad

(on his grave stone)

You still stop by
And ask the same questions
Every time the answers are different
They change color

Every mental event adds a hue
And I struggle with this sphere of a multitude of lights
That I can’t travel

You blink and look on
Can’t I see it?

And I can’t stop by
Because the skies have put my name on their forbidden list

Mother’s heart can stop any day now
And Reem’s eyes may bleed by every sunset
It all depends on the news forecast

The faces of yesterday that flocked around your grave are gone
There are bullet holes in their smiles
That’s why they won’t visit

They left a message on the telephone wire above the gate
But when Aunt Fatima’s spirit tried to reach it, it screeched
And they mistook it for the ghost of an insurgent
They shot the life out of the wires

And for days it rained
And I couldn’t call Mother

Hussein thinks he remembers you
He smiles when your photo emerges in a kitchen conversation
They’ll never understand why he suddenly smiles
His little nose can smell your pipe

They finally put away your books
The gun powder has turned them black
I will clean them for you

And if my answers are colorless
And my feet have not flown towards your ‘qibla’
And your pages are still stained,
You will know…
It is you who will have to stop by…again

Mother's Day in Baghdad

Mother's dreams died on the couch yesterday,
and so did Thamra's mother, next door.
They were sleeping soundly and no one heard them go...
Ahmed and Abu Shaker tried desperately to revive them...
But no ambulance would come...

It was Mother's Day, and the shots could be heard overhead.
The dreams were motionless.
'The helicopter's close', Mother said.
It has come to sweep your dreams Mother.
Wake up! Thamra's all alone, and she has no mother...
on Mother's Day...

Your cell phone will not answer in the evening,
the paint on your walls is peeling,
and you have no reason to be there, Mother!
This war has not come to an end.
And I don't want you to end...
There will be no ambulance for you Mother.

There will only be choppers chasing your dreams as they try to grow...
There will only be rains to wash away your couches
and silence the phone!
How will I ever talk to you again?

Did you not hear the last scream...?
They're gone with the guns Mother!
These couchless dreams are damp and sore.
And you have no reason to sleep, Mother.
Wake up! Thamra's all alone, and on Mother's Day she has no mother...
She only has the rain.

For Little Hasooni

For the love of your face that captures my brother's beautiful eyes
For the love of your tiny 'skinful' fingers and 'fleshful' cheeks
For the love of all that’s in me, that’s in you
All that you now cannot see
For the love of you, my little instance of my bigger brother
May God bless your tiny nose a thousand times
May he guide you as it grows with your curiosity
And may he carry you into all the worlds you will come to encounter…
with every footprint on the walks of life...

This is for my darling nephew, Hussein, named after my grandfather Hussein.

Ah! Fallujah!

You reek of red...
the military bugles sing in crimson,
and the peasants chant, their song of scorched earth...
The leftists left no leaf unraped;
the rightists, no faces, unravished,
an aura of blood floats over the wounds of your weeping earth
and yet your spirit stands erect…

Ah Fallujah! Mother of the ghost warriors
Still-born in a boot-mutilated masjid…kicking and screaming for another life…to come out untouched…
The skies spit back at your pale perpetrators…
The green has been stolen from your tear-rotting cheeks and flung high from your date palms…
into your fast-drying womb, but its too late…
Your virginity was fractured,
with the cry of the first bird that lost its wings to a false freedom…

Rise…now, and slowly God will seek your fingers…
The sun has risen; it’s his call for you to come back to life…
Rage...again...and again.

When It Happened...

When it happened,
a long time ago,
cheap phone cards meant the world,
and the world was wrapped up in Schiphol;
Phone booths where Easterners' sweat left finger prints on the damaged glass and lingered...
His voice, a restless, sometimes nervous whisper,
questioning his short-term obstacles...small, but looming large, already...
so much like the fluctuations of his sensitive ego...
-'This guy snores, he sleeps on the airport seats...his feet stink!'
-'It's OK. You'll be OK. Just call me before you leave'
-'11 more minutes'...

Aches and time. This summed up his experience.
-'Where is your warm bosom. I cannot cry. They would think I'm not man enough to be alone here.'
No, I guess they won't. They won't know you carried the bloodied limbs of the stone-throwers into their make-shift graves...They won't know you discovered your brother's dried up carcass amidst cyanide fumes...That you escaped the gun shots of rutheless murders after your Palestinian blood...
But you will have my scarf to smell me, and when it's dark and no one can hear you...
You can cry your heart out...For I will be there.

For the first 'love of my life'...

Mother

Her lines speak,
her face, a mirror, hardly scratched...
Clouds of questions stream through her lashes and land on the pillow.
The days long gone unroll again in slow laps, around her brow...
Hints of answers spark through her half-closed look....
Age disperses its weariness in peace around her eyes.
The tentacles of intolerance
that once were her fingers,
now outstretched,
groping for another lost answer...
She believes I have it.
But I do not.
And if I did, I would not give it...
for fear that the three stents in her strained arteries...burst...
I am the purity
that you bore and baptized mother,
as clean as your heavenly heels...
as spotless as God can render a human,
and as stained as the devil would try...
For I have been tried...
But the firmament has seen me through.
I lack your serenity,
your solutions...
The mirror of my heart is cracked.
It refracts a myriad shades of your love for me through those long gone days...
And I still love you...
More.

These Dreams

I get these dreams,
of rooms and faces
-the so-called 'Bond of Nightmares' of planes leaving me behind,
and long lost visas.
On the other side, the World has set, the day is gone.
On this side, they burn the Quran,
and praise Jesus, while Jesus cries...

Things unnamed have rooted me here,
sentiments untouched, and thoughts over-protected.
The question looms -Do I really want to be on this side?

What is there to come home to?

My fathers smiles in another room where the ceilings are high and the ocean is nearby...
He holds these purple birds from Paradise, and sends them to flutter in my face...
My sister knees-crossed on the sofa, playing Backgammon with his shadow...
Later, laying rugs of crimson whims down my corridors of dreams...each with a different home-sick pattern...

She resents this side...She already knows...

There is nothing to come home to...

Her Morning Coffee

Washing her coffee-rimmed mug
every morning…7:30,
her thank-you stared back at me
from a pool of stains in the basin.

Every morning,
her spectacles of tireless scrutiny
questioned me,
bribing with a pain
I felt satisfied existed.

Every 7:30
it was a different story
from a book of life,
she never entirely revealed.

They were told with compassion,
with tactless affection
and strained nostalgia
for all the other unwashed coffee mugs...

They dripped of a truth
alien to our world.
Compulsary details would sap the senses out of endless words...

Every morning,
Abu Tariq would heat the water.
By then, I'd finished washing.
The college corridors, cold & damp,
I & the pegion's chicks
on the unattended window sill
sat still to listen...

They smoked out of corrugated lips,
where cigarette ends
set fire to memories...

Charred with despair,
they persevered,
image after image
too out of reach,
for her spectacles to grasp...

Every morning,
she'd sip her coffee
look at me
& love me.

I'd be in them,
tales with disappearing tails...
Like coffee tricklings on moist mugs,
and cigarette butts in tissue-choked ashtrays...

She never smiled,
hardly a twitch of the lips...
Closing the door,
I'd glance behind...
She'd be murmuring to the pegion's chicks
about other morning memories...


This poem was written for Ms. Siba, in 1987. A Palestinian activist, her despondency had overcome her, but she still had hope that someday, there would be a Palestinian State...She knew it would not be in her time...

MS. SIBA

The smell of wheat-brown bread...



The smell of her,



I'd sniff



into and out of her,



as I would kiss her furrowed forehead.



The Images Triggered :



A small kitchenette,



and vegetable patch in front,



a small gas stove,



and bare brown shelves,



a tiny corridor,



as ample as the life she lead,



and memories mingled,



with the dust of the books stacked,


all around...



then out of nowhere, a Gustave Dore',



hanging somewhere above the staircase,



in it, a wide-eyed monkey,



staring at the slow-moving world underneath,



staring at her charcoal head,



revolving around



what should have been,



but never was...




Ms. Siba Al-Fahoum was a Palestinian professor who lived for the Palestinian cause, and died heart-broken with the way things have come to pass...She was brilliant, dedicated and passionate. At one time, a very close friend of the late Ghassan Kanafani -she was the last member of staff (at their small journal in Beirut) to bid him goodnight, before the morning after, when he was torn to bits in an Israeli-implanted car bomb in his garage. She was at one time, Abu-Amar's personal translator, but turned away, when her disappointment with his handling of the cause surmounted her frustration. She lived and died alone. She was as great as God could make a human.

My Father

He lies there waiting for my arrival
for me to bestow the farewell wishes on his tombstone before he ascends
And I can't
the bombs disturb his tired ears
and the dust clogs his tear ducts
And still he waits...in his grave
Up there in the sunshine,
there's a shadow that he craves...
his spirit blinks...
Was that my silhoutte? Am I finally here?
What has taken me so long?
A million times the trees play tricks
His blurred vision struggles with the leaves
Yet he cannot sense my smell or existance
because I am not there
Someday soon, when the bombs cease and the land is quiet
Someday soon I will come to say a prayer over his glorious head
and kiss the stone...
Farewell, now fly!
You don't have to wait for the last of your children to finally say Good-bye.

Since my father's passing away, I have not been able to return to Iraq, my home country to visit my father's grave.

The Salt Shaker

The Salt Shaker

The salt shaker in the illustration,
red and small,
symmetrical.
Just the right pinches of shadows…
Who drew it?
Picked it up from a meal table and put it on the page?
Who redrew it?
Captured the salt as their own and digitalized it?
The salt shaker
a small symbol of taste
the embodiment of the love shared and passed around on the original artist’s table,
a mild moment caught and refracted
into a million flying fractions
landing on a white page...
For the normal eye,
another icon.
For those who can savor
all the salt they will pass for the length of their lives…


The emotions a small icon on a diet planner inspired...

Mid-Summer Night's African Dream

Shanaz where are you?
And where has Africa gone?
Down the Indian ocean highway
On a runaway motorcycle
Singing songs of Jesus Christ, Super Star

Your spectacles were respectable
My father admired your mind
And you did well unto him

Where have the sail boats gone?
They no longer sing to the ocean liner at the pier
No more Kitanges fly in the wind
And no more African hair braids shine
Underneath the Dar-es-Salaam moon….

There was a forgotten Indian song, Shanaz
It had floated above the drive-in movie theater walls
And caught onto the trains of a suspended sari from one
Of the cars
And disappeared

Where are you?

'Shanaz' was the Administrative Assistant, at the Iraqi Embassy in an East African country, in the late 70s. She was of a member of a large Indian community that lived there, then.

NAMU & THE WAR

First, there was the 1st war,

and at the fronts,

Asmaa's uncle was slaughtered.

And, P. O. W. s were dragged through the mud,

tied to trucks...

Asmaa cried on the backyard bench,

at Baghdad High.

Then, Namu died.

Dragged himself in

with a bubble for an eye,

and a skin flap for a hind leg.

And Tamraa tried hard,

to understand why I cried

so hard ...

I’d screamed at the front gate guard,

“shoot him!”

But mercy was not available,

during the war

- not even at the fronts,

euthanasia; extinct.

It was easier with the P.O.Ws

(no one heard you at the fronts).

Ahmed had screamed and shut the bathroom door,

in the remains of Namu’s face.

And in the morning,

Mother cried.

At the stove, her bitter coffee

turned to salt.

And Dad smiled in sadness…

But soon, the trucks on TV,

tore off

the POWs arms!

So, soon,

too soon,

they all forgot about Namu....

In memory of Namu, my cat, who died during, the Iran-Iraq War.

Iraq

You drain the words out of my famished mouth
when you scream,
a sun-drenched cry of dripping dates and palm-green nostalgia.
You, a thought in the womb before birth,
and all the lines of crimson of afterlife...
You, a bosom of Tigris-scented compassion,
thrown across a desert of aimless caravans.
You, a wan wanderer, in the pages of my history...
Did you know that your rains washed away my name,
minutes before baptism?
And tattooed tomorrow's memories for eternity...
But then, you turned your face east...
away from me...
Do you recognize me? ...
I am the homeless child that seeks your amputated arms for refuge,
a beggar of identity amidst your grains of blood-drenched sands.
Why have you lost me
when I had hung on to the trains of your abbai,
through all the wars,
all the sores...?
Left my minarets of war-torn memories to crumble into oblivion...
my faith in humankind disemboweled.
You are the truth
-if it ever existed,
belief, when it is all I know.
I know you now
like I know God.
For you are the entity they forbade,
the remnants of the game they played,
the devastated I...

For my beloved Iraq...

Last- minute Cravings

Last- minute Cravings

His clasp tight on my leather shoulder
as he consoled me on the death of Jabra
Like him, he had smelt of sunlight
on wet pavements.
Later, he had smelt of cheddar cheese
as I’d stooped to kiss his cheek.
His clasp was now
Frail and yellow.
High and away
His constellation had expired
Yet, he was still craving lemon ice-cream
And, Leena was always going to ‘Frosty’s’ to get some.
He craved:
cartoons, multi-media software,
and coffee.
But most of all
he craved life & her
Within his retrieved memory
he had tried to reinstall her smile when the sun
was out.
She had loved and cherished
till death did
its part....
Sometimes, when she savors Cheddar cheese
and lemon ice-cream, quietly...
some days, when she sips her bitter coffee,
and watches cartoon with the children,
She dies silently......




In memory of Dr. Bashir Al-Issa, a Palestinian scholar, who died of lung cancer.

An Afternoon Chat in His Office

An Afternoon Chat in His Office

We tackled the ‘Concept of Death’
while Death squatted on his shoulders,
played with what was left of his hair,
and gazed at me as a likely prospect.
Dark clouds would pass, behind him
when Death would block out the sun,
and still we spoke of sunrise.
I was preaching
the Rules of Thumb
for the game of ‘going’
and all the while,
I was fingerless.....
‘Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light’
When on the way home, their home,
no lighted windows looked out,
of the black night.
I had thought
God would make an exception
And he had thought so too
or tried to...
leafing through my poetry, wondering
if he would be the next elegy.
I was pleading that he hang on
when all I wanted to do,
was let go
finding reason in Leena’s face
and three curious daughters
when Reason had set, with the light
had gone
‘gentle into that good night’

In memory of Dr. Bashir.

WET ANTS

And after they brought in

coffin no.11,

I stopped carrying ants off the wet basin,

into tile cracks.

-not unless their antennas screamed for help.

I couldn't carry ants!

My shoulders would shiver

-though they were really lighter than coffins...

I wish I could've carried all those khaki limbs

out of those blood baths

into some haven in time's endless crevices,

but God never let me.

Did the job himself.

He's good at that...

I'm only good at drowning ants with excessive tears

then watching them slide down the basin

to lift them out with shivering shoulders

back into tile cracks...

In memory of the unknown soldier.

Father...

Father...

At night when in peace with God's words
the ones that I will to read for you
you come
your spectacles reflect a yearning
I know I have to wait for you in slumber
For there you can talk at your dear heart's ease
You smile, like you would when you need me to smile too
You say nothing...
That is until yesterday...
I have brought you these my dear...
I choose not to think...
I cannot fathom...
I dare not cry again...
After so so long...
Have the years slipped past so fluidly...
We talk, I and the rest who work hard at not remembering you...
I wonder if they know my struggle...tear at their dreams for a pinch of reality that maybe, just maybe...you might be visiting...
For real...

In memory of my beloved father.

Remembering You

And so begins the coffee process
I stare…
Another blank paper goes by…
Scribbles of memory enlighten the drab outlook.
You arrive,
Alive
And suddenly, you lie…there underneath the earth, without your glasses, without your smile, without the light in your eyes,
Without anything
Are you here as I remember? As I relive your presence, relive your words and wish them back?
I want to be where you are…
Now the other side…is no longer foreign….


In memory of my beloved father.

Missing You

Saying your name is like calling God
Your eyes call back, a sad old song in them
and yet they smile
I realize it is only the wall paper on my screen…
I think the energy in my computer stems…from where you lie in the earth…far away
Your hands are soft and wise in the picture…they will always be
Even God will feel it when he welcomes you to heaven…
You are wearing your favorite blue shirt…when will you put it on again? Mother did not have the heart to give it away…
Your lips curl like the surf on the sea and they hide an ocean of emotions…
Longing, loving and missing…Now I surf that sea alone…
You left because you felt it was time…you had come to see us all together for once, at last…and then you just closed your eyes and slept forever
….so it will never be the same again…Together will be without you, forever…
What did you think when you saw us go, one by one…What could you not say? Did I hinder you?
I was just trying to stop your tears and plant some hope….little did I know that your earth was drying up inside…and that you had given in to winter…
I read the Koran for you…when I can…I still have a lot to cover…
I read the same sura for you, every night, three times so that your spirit may be blessed, in heaven, on earth or wherever you are….I say it, close my eyes and will it to you.
I know my soul is not void of impurities….but I know God will listen because he is merciful…
I see you in my dreams and there we will meet, when you want to…
I will call your name and God will answer with a message and
Your image….

In memory of my beloved father.

An Urge

An urge to trace your words in ivory memories
An urge to touch the age spots on your fingers and kiss them
An urge to talk to your eyes and wipe the slow tears from under the glasses
An urge to tug your spirit home…here…

An urge to tell you I love you…
An urge to let you know that I know, nobody loves me as much as you do…
An urge to ask your mind all that I will need to know tomorrow…because I couldn’t remember to ask yesterday…
An urge to turn my face to your serene forehead…no matter where it lies…
An urge to capture your grin and let it lull my heart to a warm amnesia….

An urge to hold you….transplant my veins in your arms and let them…hold me..
An urge to sit where you had kept the seat warm…breathe the fragrance of your tobacco and wear it forever…

An urge to break bread again…pass the morning toast and watch your lips as they feed…
An urge to tell you that your tea is the best…your thoughts are my bible…and your deeds my Koran….

An urge to hear your voice over the lines of oblivion…and make believe the lines are dead…and not you…
An urge to let you know…and know that you will know…that you are the reason I awake in the morning….
An urge to lay my head on your heart and only awake where I can feel the throb of your life…eternally…

In memory of my beloved father.

Father, Again

Father

I wish I could sit with you….somewhere in heaven
On wicker chairs, brown and silent
And stare at a serene sunrise quietly….

I wish I could put my finger tips on your arm
My head on your heart and breath in a new morning with you
Somewhere else…away from this world

I wish I could pause forever
Not think, not dream
Just feel your presence
Smile and rest eternally, like you…

And all this time we would be looking at the sunrise
Without a word
For I would look at you
And you would look back
And we would know
Without much said
That I had finally come home…

In memory of my beloved father.