The War Works Hard
“The war works hard, day and night. / It is a muse for the tyrant’s / long speeches, / it hangs medals around generals, / it blesses poets with themes, / it makes the makers busy—” | by Dunya Mikhail
Iraq
Morning
“It’s cold on the street now/and this café she loves is warming up.” | by Saadi Youssef
Snow May Fall
by Saadi Youssef: The room / is fortified with wood blinds and glass,
Destinies
The retired man The brown crane-like boy The woman with the blue shawl And the poet with the diamond heart Are waiting for the red bus That will take them. The retired man to: Cafe “Hasan Ajmi” The brown crane-like boy To the boy scout center The woman with the blue shawl: To al-Mansoor And …
Endings
A blind man roams God’s twenty one villages alone wearing his blindness like a treasure. He strikes out in loss, and in loss his staff leads him. Sometimes he fancies that the earth is his friend’ wherever his feet end up he is the drinker and the watering hole. He inquires into things about which …
Nothing Here Is Enough
I need a parrot identical days a quantity of needles and spoiled ink to make history. I need veiled eyelids black lines and ruined puppets to make geography. I need a sky wider than longing and water that is not H2O to make wings. The days are no longer enough to distinguish the missing I …
Gzar Hantoosh
Poetry International 10
“Destinies”
Saadi Youssef
Saadi Youssef’s work was translated by Khaled Mattawa for Volume V of Poetry International.