Every Morning the War Gets Up from Sleep by Fadhil Al-Azzawi

Fadhil Al-Azzawi, Iraqi writer
who was jailed in the 1970s
now living in exile.
Mr. Al-Azzawi is an accomplished
novelist, poet, short story writer
living in Germany today.

Ah! This is Baghdad: I move through it every day, to and fro,
While I squat in this cold exile. I look for it
In the demonstrators who move along Rashid Street carrying banners,
In the strikes of textile workers,
To whom we throw bags of bread and political tracts.
At dawn, carrying paint, we spray the walls with our slogans:
"Down with Dictatorship!"
In the coffee-houses extending along the river on Abu Nawwas,
In the fishermen by the bridge,
In the monument of Jawad Selim which is riddled with bullets, 
In Majid’s coffeehouse, where the geniuses and informers sip tea,
Where a poet expelled from college gazes at a window
Behind which three Palestinian girls gaze down the street forever.

Ah! Every morning the war gets up from sleep.
So I place it in a poem, make the poem into a boat, which I throw into the Tigris. 

This is war, then.

Baghdad Things by Mohammed Jafar

This is just one of several paintings by Iraqi artist 

Mohammed Jafar represented on the website of

Iraqi Art, a non-profit organization dedicated to 

providing "a much needed, more comprehensive

and humanistic view of the people and cultures

in which these artists live" and "to promote 

understanding and compassion fo people who 

live under tyranny and oppression."

from http://www.iraqi-art.com

The Iraqi Children's Art Exchange

The Iraqi Children's Art Exchange brings together children and
youth in art-inspired projects that give the children of war a way
to express themselves.  The ICAE encourages freedom of expression
just for the pleasure of it but often the artwork helps children
communicate their feelings and concerns of living in a war torn
country.  The mission of the ICAE is to"bring the ideas, views,
concerns, hopes and dreams of children and youth into the critical
discussions and decisions of our day."

To learn more about the ICAE please go to their website at:
http://www.iraqichildrensart.org.


Copyright © 2009 Iraqi Children's Art Exchange

Ya* Ali by Nedhal Abbas

No photo was available of
Nedhal Abbas.  However,
this image speaks for
all Iraqis. Ms. Abbas, mother
of two, wrote her first book,
"Dreams of Invisible Pleasures",
in 1999.

          This is by no means

The whole story

We can see the end
Not the process
The consequences
Not the causes

In Najaf
At Imam Ali’s** shrine
A sad recognition of…
What? I ask.

Ya Ali
A woman mourns
Cuddling her dead son
Looking at the sky
Not the shrine
As if...
What? I ask.

A bomb falls

On a house
Not the shrine
Al hamdullilah
Thank God

Ya Ali
In the haunting miles
Of Wadi Assalam***
Gravediggers
To bury their fear
Conjure the blessings of
The murdered Imam.

F16 strikes

Silence no more
Noble, dispassionate,
Unsentimental
One and a half million Dead
Bound to no one
They murmur
Ya Ali

In the Sahan****
By the shadow of the Imam
A young fighter
Rests
An old book in hand
He reads
“Proclaim the truth”
“Stand by the oppressed not the oppressor”*****.

Apache helicopters fire

Thick black smoke rises
Smell of burnt flesh
Fills the air
Is he someone we know?
I ask.

Yaaa Aliiiiii
I hear no answer.


For more of Nedhal Abbas' poetry please go to:
http://www.stateofnature.org/poemsIraq.html

Chemical Weapons by Saadi Yousef

Saadi Yousef is one of
the most prolific Arab
poets.  He is described
as a revolutionary poet
and has lived most of
his life in exile from Iraq.
l

Chemical Weapons

In March, the Kurds were in the tranquility of the impossible
Dresses of Spring,
Faces of Spring, But the singer was dead.
The clouds that descended like black mustard in the lungs,
The clouds that tied the knot of death around the lovely morning,
The clouds that curdled the devil's bread in the pupil of the sunset,
Do you think they will pass through the thicket of cypress
And touch the date palms?



For more poetry by Saddi Yousef please
visit: http://nzpoetsonline.homestead.com/sy12.htm.

My Mother's Kitchen by Choman Hardi

I will inherit my mother’s kitchen,
her glasses, some tall and lean others short and fat

Choman Hardi is a young

Kurdish poet and was chair of 

the Exiled Writers Ink, a 

community of established 

refugee writers.

source: Open Democracy,

http://www.opendemocracy.net

her plates, an ugly collection from various sets,
cups bought in a rush on different occasions
rusty pots she doesn’t throw away.
“Don’t buy anything just yet”, she says,
“soon all of this will be yours”.

My mother is planning another escape
for the first time home is her destination,
the rebuilt house which she will furnish.
At 69 she is excited about starting from scratch.
It is her ninth time.

She never talks about her lost furniture
when she kept leaving her homes behind.
She never feels regret for things
only her vine in the front garden
which spread over the trellis on the porch.
She used to sing for the grapes to ripen,
sew cotton bags to protect them from the bees.
I will never inherit my mother’s trees.

The Prisoner by Dunya Mikhail

Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi
exile whose poetry include
 her observations and feelings
about war.  Dunya has been
writing poetry since she was
a teenager in Baghdad at
the start of the Iran-Iraq War.

The Prisoner by Dunya Mikhail

She doesn't understand
what it means to be "guilty"
She waits at the prison's door

until she sees him
to tell him "Take care"
as she used to remind him
when he was going to school
when he was going to work
when he was coming on vacation
She doesn't understand
what they are uttering now
those who are behind the bar
with their uniform
as they decided that
he should be put there
with strangers of gloomy days
It never came to her mind
when she was saying lullabies
upon his bed
during those faraway nights
that he would be put
in this cold place
without moons or windows
She doesn't understand
The mother of the prisoner doesn't understand
why should she leave him
just because "the visit has finished"!

as translated by Salaam Yousif and Liz Winslow

You can learn more about Dunya Mikhail by going to:
http://iraq.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=14378&x=1