Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen
1
The poet wrote the title of his poem.
He was tired like a severed head
Alone like a desert falling into the sea
Lonely like a grave waiting for a corpse
Stolen by thieves.
When he attempted to write his poem
The head besieged him
The desert surrounded him
The corpse and the grave mock him
And the thieves captured him very happily.
2
Time is dust.
The day is straw.
The hour is an ash.
When the poet caught
The first letter of dust
The first letter of straw
The first letter of ash
He turned into a letter without dot,
Without joy or fire.
3
I searched for my childhood in an old song.
I searched for it in the date palm of Babylon.
I asked Hilla’s* night about it.
I found it nowhere but in the palm of a child beggar
Sitting near an old bridge
Reaching out his hands to the frowning passers-by.
Now he laughs, then he weeps or sleeps.
4
The poet wrote his elegy
And searched for a listener but he found nobody
Only the Euphrates
Who listened and kissed it
And concealed it within his heart:
In the middle of mud and fish.
5
The woman is in the mirror.
The mirror is in the bathroom.
The bathroom is in the drum.
The drum is in the dinar.
The dinar is in poverty.
Poverty is my friend
Poverty is my lovers,
My people and my sun.
6
The poet wrote the address of his grief
As well as the address of his post box;
Bankrupted to death
And the phone number of his pain.
That he sent to the elegant magazines and newspapers.
The magazines competed to publish these poems
And to full them with joyful colours.
But they forgot to reply
To the address of the bankrupt post box
And to the phone number of his great pain.
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* Hilla: an Iraqi city near old Babylon.
(TM)