Saadi Youssef

Translated by: Fawaz Trabulsi

Macedonians on the lost trail,
Russian cavalry dragging mules,
Shepherds of sly goats on the march,
carrying guns and fresh cheese,
Did Abdel Salam Barazani flare it up Like one strikes a match?
Rawandouz leaves but a sigh, like walnut stains on the palms of your hand,
Which trees questioned for the Naqashbandites the pole star?
Came:Macedonians,

Alexander the grate's ideal stature,
Russians, Kurdish rebels, the British,
Social classes from all over the world,
the Shah,
artillerymen and rocket experts,
a general from overseas,
came: a woman looking for her sons...
(in this lost corner of the world ships turned in to stone, and the "
Nationalist council for Hatred"
reigns over an orchard Of stone and gun-powder.
Flares beyond the river.

Roses from Bukhara. Rosary beads from Qom. An
Armenian face. Quiet are the waves of van. Into the silence, the bell tints.
Syria's, Yazidis. Turkmen violence.
Assyrian peasants. Delicious is the village
wine- The partisans are in the cave and Bob-Dinar
in the Mirage 2000)
Country born
between river and river
Country tom
between sword and sword

You barely drew a map of light, that were dimmed the lights on Summer's minaret and al Raha walls...
Which white-dark Hellenic woman built a winepress and a pottery? built cities from Hajj Omrane
to the sea?
(when Alexander the Great, died there were, in Mesopotamia alone, three hundred towns and cities bearing his name)
Country born
between river and river
Country tom
between sword and sword,
Bitter country with imbecile rulers
The children of Nisibis grazed your fresh grass. And the chaldean rose slept in her forgotten
mass ... Do woman still carry it in their wombs?
Hark, rose by river and sea watered:
Once, we meant to make History. but, stood waiting ... so the mom passed,
and History passed Byzantines passed and Daylams.
Constantinople or Mecca. Al-Hallaj and Al-Hajaj.
Who will ever awaken the rose of Memory in these salty marches?
Would we still drink from I shtar's jar wine that once flowed from the eyes of Gilgamesh's?
Ah!
Country born
between river and river
Country torn
between sword and sword,
Whenever you conjure your ancestors, beat the Barbarian drums...
Nationalists enjoying the affluence of torture, devouring the tens of thousands they have killed (the communists were blind-folded, stacked like corpses, yet hymns rose in crescendo as the execution squads woke UP in the ailing dawn-)
Blood in Babylonia, what is the difference between the squads of years and the squads of death?
would that my arm be a tree-root, I'd unleach my Winged Bulls, and with the magic of my Gods and children, stop the invaders at Uruk's gates...
But,
Country born
between river and river
Country tom
between sword and sword,
Country between Hajj Omrane and Bassorah,
between Revolution and Death,
the time-bomb was mightier than you, mightier than your contented water clocks. And you surrendered to the Primitive Bedouins who came from the peripheries, from those villages thrown in capital letters on the military maps of this cruel world. The Metropoles across Marum Bizantum had synchronised their time. And the Barbarian hordes swarmed upon you from their savage villages; you, fair maiden of the Summerian jars; you, beautiful arabesque on the ceramics murals. You water and words...
The Metropoles had synchronised their time,
and the Barbarians came upon you exhausted and bleeding,
0, country born
between river and river
country torn
between sword and sword,
Why
the sailorsbar. Mossul horsemen. Dyana. Assyrian ruins. The kings of the Hatra. Syria's. Shqlawa. Bab al-Shikh. Bikhal waterfalls. The last sky. AlZaqqura. The papyrus in the Ahwar marches. Fahd. The Leninists. The pilot in the MIG fighter. The people of Kufah. The exile in Nuqrat alSalman. Asoldier in the cafe at Samarrah. Dockers on the waterfront
Why have they all become prisoners in a jungle of wild beasts?
what are Uruk's children up to? What is the priest praying for? What says the oracle? and the prisoners of war who surrendered to God by the thou-
sands? And the dead?
Country torn
between sword and sword?
The rocks of Kurdistan have acquired the mechanism for destroying bunkers. Vietnam's victory was no geographic exclusivity.
In Suar Tokeh, the chars carrying mortar guns were weeping like mules. Asks a recruit: why don't the sergeants rebel?
Yesterday, a platoon surrendered at night fall. Silence, soldiers! silence, palm trees torn between Khorramshahr and Ahwaz!
My voice, an aunt who lost her sons, a child shuddering On the roads of exile.
Kurdistan retracts into her crevasses. and Dyana asks about Dyana....
Country born
between river and river
Country torn between sword and sword,
Baghdad buys her gloves from a Parisian fashion shop. Is Jacques Chirac the famous Monsieur 10%
And that socialist who anoints with
mpagne the Exocet rocket?
Which genuine Arab in Pouters were the Righteous Ancestors?
Which un-Arab Arabs in these villages of oblivion were the socialists?
(May I suggest to Mr.Francois Mitterand, President of the French Republic, to carefully read the "Collected Works" of Hajj Khayyrallaa Tulfah, official theoretician of the Baghdad regime; Regis Derby's help will be appreciated!)
Country born
between river and river country born
between sword and sword,
This land which had been our home, even for one
day, has it beacon the invaders passageway? or
just another prey? Did You have to elect the sick Prince even at the fateful price?
Peace be upon you, my land peace be upon you.
Mandali
Ba'qouba
Baghdad...
trinity Of the world-Hellerltic Organization.
And Alexander-the-student/ drunk from Aristotle's cup,was sweeping across lands with horsemen
and wine, building cities to be later destroyed by Priests/ officers and bedouins,
and Mandali was the road...
Xellophones "Anabasis":
Mandali was the road.
Budyeni s cavalry:
and Mandali was the road...
Persians and Turks. Turks and Turks. Mamluks and Buwayhi soldiers. Arabs for thus and for that. Sunnis. Sabans. Shiis descendants of the Prophet's household. Ayyarun. Chaldeans. Nasturians. Atheists. Sun worshippers. And Kharajites....
One day, Alexander, drunk from Aristotle's cup, came to us from mandali
and Budyeni's cavalry
and Xenophone's " Anabasis".
and wine, building cities to be later destroyed by Priests/ officers and bedouins,
and Mandali was the road...
Xellophones "Anabasis":
Mandali was the road.
Budyeni s cavalry:
and Mandali was the road...
Persians and Turks. Turks and Turks. Mamluks and Buwayhi soldiers. Arabs for thus and for that. Sunnis. Sabans. Shiis descendants of the Prophet's household. Ayyarun. Chaldeans. Nasturians. Atheists. Sun worshippers. And Kharajites....
One day, Alexander, drunk from Aristotle's cup, came to us from mandali
and Budyeni's cavalry
and Xenophone's " Anabasis".
Hulago came too....
mandali
Ba'qouba
Baghdad...
Officers at the Headquarters Russian rnade helicopter is Might object. For the Russian made helicopter is Overflying Hajj Omrane, Becht Ashsn, And this War is unlike wars Of old. For war, here, is forgotten. Forgotten, the dead Forgotten, the year,. For who remernbers the dead? and who rernenibers the Years? (Barely rnetioned by sorne bulletins Published Overseas )
Officers at the I feadquarters: we are fighting in a country that was never ours.
Birmam or Tikrit?
Let the jungle of guns burn!
burl, the water Course!
Tikrit remains
and Baghdad is the journey's end!
Mandali
Ba'qouba
Baghdad..
The farce begins, and assassinated Baghdad is now dead.
Swiss guards for the intelligent Mary-Antoinette
watching over the Muslims' Treasury
French guards for Mecca and Medina
U.S. guards for those who inherited control to surrender
Israeli guards for Beirut which refuses to surrender
Guards on my house
Guards on my voice
Guards on my Gulf
Guards on Crowned heads from Abha to Ifran
Guards 01, the sands Of the Arabia, penninsula
Guards On the channels
Guards on all the airport that link island to island s, far and near Guards On the new's paperink
Guards on my prison
Guards on flowers
Guards On the tipsiness Of wine
Guards on the branches Of the trees
Guards On my homeland
Heavenly guards on God's children front the East bank of the Euphrates to the Valley of the Nile. What else remains?
May be in Hajj Omran Will we ask Ourselves about that cup we chose to drink, and prepared for it
banquets dripped with our people's blood.
How naive, were the leftists! how faint the singer's voice!
High grows the papyrus ... but the machine-gun is stacked away,
rocks abound, yet no rifles are at sight.
It is us who delivered our beards ( Assyria's pride to the one who doesn't even know how to pluck them, taught him to be an executioner and told our friends the sordid lie.
And here we are now, awaiting the end of this orgiastic folly Perhaps in Hajj Omran will we realize that this cup remains.
Waiters might quarrel; a waiter will go, another will come, yet another, but the cup remains unchanged.
who knows? Perhaps a new renaissance w- ill deliver us from the burning quest.
Who knows? perhaps a new balance of forces (without our participation) will stop the catastrophe...
And, what about us? Inflamed by the fire of ancestors,, prepared to receive the rose of the soul, uncovered discoverers, wanderers, squanderers...
But, mightier, is the Earth, heavier the impact of the falling comet, and all our modern ammunition is not worth one bullet from our old gun.
Let us, then, rise in soul beyond our bloody Present and recognise, for once, our bitter predicament and let the journey start from the darkness of this very night!
Notes -Hajj Omrane is a region in I rak"s Kur distan occupied by Iranian forces in 1983.
-Fahd(Yus suf Salman Yussef)-1900-1948
founder and leader of the Iraqi Commu nist Party.
-Uruk, Nisibis, hatra, al-Raha: historic localities of Irak. -Xenophone"s "Anabasis", recounts the au-
thor" adventures while a soldier of fortune in Presses and Kurdistan.
-Budyeni: officer of cavalry in Tsarist Russia
later to rally the October Revolu tion and be-
come legendary leader of the Red Cavalry. Led the Russian cavallry in Irak during WW 1.
-Al-Hallaj, bloody ruler of Baghdad.
-Al-Hallaj, sufi rnartyr.s
Mandali,
-Ba" quba,
Tikrit,alsO village Of Saddam Hussien.
-Shaqlawa, bab al-Shaikh al-Zaqqura,
war marches, Kufah, Samarrah, Suar To keh
KhorraMs hahr, Al-Ahwaz, becht
AShan, Mahran :IOalities in Irak and oil Ashari,
the Irak-ran war. the front of
-Naqrat al-Salman, famous prison in the iraki desert