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Anfal: Our 9/11 happened many times over (Free verse) by kawakurdi
I do not remember for whom I cried the last time I do not remember the last instance when I was with myself When I was with my self's sorrows When I was the lone friend of my lonely loneliness When I was the intimate mate of my desire-full inner soul When I was with myself for myself When I was my self's self, Was MYSELF. Oh, if only for one hour, one minute, one second, I could see myself in the clear mirror of my inner Self And if I could talk to myself with the pure words of Self If I could listen to those music-less melodies To those secrets of secret mysteries What colour they might be The colour of me without me What sound could they be The sound of my mute party What Existence could Absolute Idea be What Idea could Absolute Existence be What taste could the Soul have What Soul could the loneliness of solitary souls be? I do not remember the last time I said good-bye to you I do not remember the last time I missed you I do not remember the last time I upset you I do not remember your last meeting, last smile, last breath, last looks, Last sigh, last sorrow, last desire, last prayer, I do not remember when I forgot you How I forgot you But I remember how I wore you How my soul was dressed in your image How my sighs breathed you in How my eyes met a pair of eyes That opened the gates of an epic I remember when I became fond of you From beyond existence, I became the shadow of your existence, You became the shadow of my existence, My shy loneliness, My sad solitariness, Rested in your arms My heart dwelt in yours My soul was revived by yours. I do not remember when I was me, When I was with me for me, But I remember I was myself in your love, I could cry, I knew how to laugh, I was able to die, Time was in my hands, Place was on my shoulders, Life was a simple pain. Now away from you, dreams process my soul, I put my head on the mist of your breast, And listen to the withered whispers of your heart I travel to a world I have never seen before I have never passed through it even accidentally Nor heard of it by word of mouth Nor read about it in books and epics Where did this come from? This non-material phenomenon, This non-existential looks, What a wonderful world it is How unique and peerless it is It is dream, it is the Self's self, It is inner image, It is the root of rootless consciousness It is the beginning of no-beginning It is the First's First The non-existence of Existence The Existence of non-existence It is a grain of soil, A worm, A Universe A Mystery A Myth Who can catch shade? Who can hunt the sunrays? Who can chase the wind? Who can catch a dream, measure a dream, Jail a dream, hang a dream? Dream is man-in-God, Dream is God-in-Man It is I in you It is you in a me-less me. It is consciousness with no boundaries It is the infinity of sub-consciousness I do not remember the last time I forgot you But my thoughtlessness is your thought My selflessness is your self All my dreamlands are your home All my homes are your dreamland Are you an entity without identity? Are you an existence with no ingredients? Or are you eternity in ideas, Or are you ideas in eternity? Or just a fading memory In my trouble-ridden heart? Or a living twilight, In the remote sky of my then-town? Or a buried-alive woman of Anfal Or a heroine in the Zewa camp, Islamic butchers play with your body To make sandwiches for your kids? The bosses call you a a prostitute And their men set you a goal for their guns? What entity, what destiny are you, my heart? I do not remember the last time I cried for you. I do not remember for whom I cried last time, For Hiwa, for Hemin, for Hama, for Misto, For Chato, for Karwan, for Pari, for Shirin, for Kajal, for Gulala, for Jiyan, for Hero? For whom did I cry last time? For Azad, how many Azads, which Azad? For Mahabad, how many Mahabads, which Mahabad? For Farhad, how many Farhads, which Farhad? I do not know for whom I cried last time? Did I cry for all and in crying for all I cried for you? Or did I cry for you alone, and in crying for you I cried for all? Or did I collect the mud of the word, paste it on my face, And my head became hard clay? Then, I could cry no more, I lost energy to tremble, I had no breath to shout, I became a living shadow In a dead world? Really, why did I cry last time? Was it for Marga, for Kani Tu, For Sargalu, for Bargalu, For Halabja, for Sharazur, For Khalifan, for Mergasur, For Qaradagh, for Garmiyan, For Barwari, for Badinan? For which town, which townlet, Which morning, which dawn, which sunshine. Which mountain, which village, which meadow, Which orchard, which springwater, which oaktree? I do not know how many tears were left For my heart-town Qaladiza? I do not know for which lover I cried last time, The death of which baby shocked me, The coffin of which body stunned me, The name of which village unsettled my heart I do not know who extinguished the flame of my blood, Who read prayers of hatred on my body, And said to me. Now we have cut off all the roots of your life, We have destroyed everything that you loved, Die, man, die!! Or turn exile into the burden of death And carry it on your shoulders From this station to another, From this island to another. Outside world is a dry barren tree, Look for yourself in yourself, Remember your last time What you were, who you were, Where you were, Were you existent or non-existent Were you a one or a two Were you a bowl, or a magic Were you death or history?

Up the ladder: A Place
Down the ladder: stamp

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Arithmetic Mean: 4.7647057
Weighted score: 4.7927537
Overall Rank: 11203
Posted: September 11, 2002 1:47 PM PDT; Last modified: September 11, 2002 1:47 PM PDT
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Comments:
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.210.140 | 11-Sep-02/2:36 PM | Reply
Oh God/Allah/Vishnu please stop. You know you have an excellent idea here, but talk about long and boring and what a stupid title. I was not even interested until you started reeling over the names and that was almost at the end. Poems for political struggle are grand, but this is a weak, weak, did I mention, weak, first draft. .
[n/a] kawakurdi @ 195.93.33.9 > poetandknowit | 11-Sep-02/3:18 PM | Reply
I understand that the context of your exiestence and your life experience are different and you canot relate to this. But I posted it on 11 September to allow readers a linkage of feeling. The original poem is not English and the rythm and flow are lost in translation. But what is weak? Language is for description/expression of emotion, ideas and situations. They all exist in this poem though you find it difficult to interconnect because you get bored quickly. That is part of your culture. Nothing with depth and permanence but just quick fix and fast food. Thanks anyway for allowing yourself to be bored by my poems and tell me this.
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.210.140 > kawakurdi | 11-Sep-02/3:26 PM | Reply
Oh good god, yet another weak defense. The poem is boring in any language. I didn't lose anything in translation and quite frankly you sound rather ignorant placing me in a cultural generalization. The poem is a weak sentiment from someone who lacks the proper experience or depth to write a poem that has the force to move people. It is generalist. If it had the same title, was translated from Farsi, and was I good poem, believe me, I would be the first to compliment it. Do not bring cultural context into your defense. It won't work.
[n/a] kawakurdi @ 195.93.33.9 > poetandknowit | 11-Sep-02/4:35 PM | Reply
You are the one who generalises. You can say " In my opinion, or I believe the poem is weak and boring, etc. But this absolute judgment is the result of your cultural ignorance. Whether you like it or not cultural context is in operation. You are a cultural product of your society, a commodity, although you behave as though you are a conscious actor that you are not.
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.210.112 > kawakurdi | 11-Sep-02/10:14 PM | Reply
Of course, I am a product of my culture, but I am looking at a fucking poem. The context of the poem, the language, the images, etc. I am bringing nothing to the table when I read this for the first time and am reading your work for the first time. Now that I know your work, I will bring something to the table. I am not sure why you want to make this more than it is. I am attacking the poem not you or your culture. I could care a less about that. So why attack mine, when you have no idea what it is or where I am. It is the poet's job to put me in the poem, to make me understand. There are a good many things I do not do or understand, but when a good poet or writer communicates effectively, I am there (i.e war, holocaust, sitting in a little hut eating goat stew when some crazy son of a bitch decides he wants to gas his own people). I am sorry if you want to make it something else, whether cultural or religious, but I am not going there. I realize I am not Kurdish or have not experienced what happened to the Kurdish people but a good poem will make me feel like I have. Read my work. It may not take on subjects like Anfal, but I will take you down Colfax Ave in Denver on a cold night hungry and in need of a smoke and you will feel the cold, the pangs in your stomach and the ache of needing. This poem does not do that, at least in my opinion.
[9] royalflesh @ 64.170.52.79 > poetandknowit | 11-Sep-02/10:16 PM | Reply
P&K...didn't you use this eloquently somewhere else tonight...I do believe, if not mistaken your, double jeopordy scourning the tight weaved moon of this blistering night. Ay!
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.210.112 > royalflesh | 11-Sep-02/10:28 PM | Reply
I know this may sound hard to believe, but I removed some harsh words that upon reflection and the situation the poem deals with, I felt were inappropriate.
[5] <~> @ 24.44.185.41 > poetandknowit | 11-Sep-02/10:31 PM | Reply
yes, you're going frass on us. but only a little. i agree with the crux of what you have said, but haven't the balls to put it out there in light of the topic. and i saw your test on the halloween poem, and wondered what that was about...scales fall away evey day, p&k.
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.210.112 > <~> | 11-Sep-02/10:33 PM | Reply
The test was due to royalflesh deleting my comments. I thought I was banned!!
[5] <~> @ 24.44.185.41 > poetandknowit | 11-Sep-02/10:35 PM | Reply
why would you be banned? did you do something bad? something that, maybe you would't want santa to see? paranoia may destroyahhhh
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.210.112 > <~> | 11-Sep-02/10:40 PM | Reply
I haven't been so kind to the 9/11 tributes today. And I really pissed off Amaliea (she didn't like my Starbucks tribute haiku), among others.
[9] royalflesh @ 64.170.52.79 | 11-Sep-02/9:05 PM | Reply
great! very impressed! You're going somewhere - and this is part of the traveling. Fantastic-iclicly-make-me-cum good. 9/10
[5] god'swife @ 209.178.176.156 | 12-Sep-02/12:45 AM | Reply
I think you have alot of important stories to tell. Some of these stanzas are very beautifully executed. I think if you divide these events into separate stories it would have more impact on the reader. It's too much all at once. Also, the title is inappropriate. The terrorist attacks of Sept.11th, 2001 should not be compared with the horrors other people are living. Not because it takes anything away from "9/11", but because it minimizes your own struggle. Your experiences and the experiences of the people you present to me in this poem deserve to stand on their own. I understand your point, the United States of America appears to be an arrogant self-centered nation. We'e making a big deal out of a comparatively small act of violence. But don't you see, you are contributing to the agrandizing of this event simply by putting it in the title of your poem. Our government is using this event to create a sense of nationalism and justification for war. Please do not confuse the people with their goverment. Just as in your country, the people here are nowhere near being the hypocrites their leaders are. This is not your 9/11 this is your Anfal. Explain it to us. Show us. Many of our citizens will listen, and take your words to heart. This title reduces the author from the honorable status of poet to the dishonorable status of slanderer. My wish for you is that your talent will grow, and that through your words and the words of other poets the United States will be forced listen.
[5] <~> @ 24.44.185.41 > god'swife | 12-Sep-02/5:50 AM | Reply
well put, mrs.g. that's it exactly.
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.213.210 > god'swife | 12-Sep-02/8:23 AM | Reply
Damn you are nice. Thanks for extending my outburst into the cultural side. I stayed away!
[n/a] kawakurdi @ 195.93.49.9 > poetandknowit | 12-Sep-02/10:12 AM | Reply
I think it is too harsh to say that choosing this title brings the author to "the dishonorable status of slanderer". That is what I call a cultural attitude. It shows the arrogance that people everywhere hate about America and the Americans. In fact the poem is very old, written in 1988 when Saddam was gassing my people and US was a great supporter of him and providing him together with other Western countries and [not surprisingly for us] the Soviet Union then, with all weapons of mass destruction. I did not add the other title with the intention of being a slanderer or reducing from the magnitutude and uniqueness of 9/11. We very much feel the pain of the people who lost their dear ones. I simply wnated this title to provoke some interest in other similar targedies which adily afflict other human peoples in many parts of the world, especailly in Kurdistan. But I see it as sheer arogance to challenge a poet the right to choose a title because "your tragedy cannot be like ours". It is always this us/them dichotomy which creates jsutification for murder, torture and oppression. Also I meant by cultural context sepcific individual and collective experiences. The names in the poem of course do not mean much to you. You would feel different if the names were Colorado, California, Hawai, Florida, Manhatan, etc. And this is natural. So for an American reader of course the poem loses the cultural and emotional conetnt and history associated with these names. So it is not critisizing or attacking or defending when mentioning this fact.

For me one of the names Marga is my village where I was born. It was a very beautiful mountain village in a vallay of orchards farms and natural forest. Only 150 families lived there. The whole village together with 4000 other villages were obliterated either with napalm bombing, bulldozing or if these did not do the trick, Western-supplied chemical weapons. When I went back in 1992 my village did not exist. The town in which I I studied my econdary education and then taught there as a teacher of English, did not exist anymore. No villages at all existed And there were 200,000 less people, women, youn people and children taken by Sdadm to Arab deserts of South Iraq near Saudi and Jordanian borders for experimenting the effectiveness of his biological and chemical weapons. This means at least seven 9/11s in terms of the number of victims. But I am sure this comparison again makes you angry: How can you compare the death of invisible Kurds to the death of bankers, engineers, technicains or simply American males and females?

So again in terms of culture, poetry also has a different mission in different context. But I stopped writing poetry for many years after Anfal because I became depressed, desperate and disillusioned about human nature. Can all poetry of the world stop the killing of a chid by a dictatorial regime? Another thing: I never approach culture in terms of East versus West, Us versus the world. In the poem there is reference to Islamic butchers. Yes, those who carried out Anfal they did it in the name of Islam in the same way they did 9/11 atrocities in the name of Islam. Anfal itself is a word taken from the Quran which refers to the right of Muslims to kill, rob, rape, and destroy Kafirs {infifdels] once they were conquered by Muslim hordes. So Saddam used this Quranic order to perpetrate his genocide. And non of the Muslim countries and peoples in any part of the world, thsoe who fill the world with wails and cries to defend Paletenians, ever raised a voice to defend the Kurds or even to recognise their pain and suffering. Althou the greatest Muslim leader ever was the Kurdsih Salah-al-Din who fought the crusaders and I think still the West has not forgotten this when dealing with the Kurds.

{ I have to go. Maybe I'll continue later}
[1] poetandknowit @ 63.232.186.222 > kawakurdi | 12-Sep-02/10:31 AM | Reply
There you go. You are telling me in the comments what I want to see and feel in the poem. You do not have to explain the situation to me. I am well aware of what anfal means and what was done and is being done to the kurds but both Iraq and Turkey. Maybe not on a personal level but on an intellectual level. I could care a less what you title your poem. But I do care about the content. Like I said yesterday it was when you started rattling of the names of the villages that it meant something to me. Until then I felt the poem drifted. If you want to discuss international relations I would be more than happy to but not in this forum. This is about poetry, and again if you can get what you are commenting about into the poem effectively, you fail to convince me of everything you are saying artistically.
[5] god'swife @ 209.179.137.77 > kawakurdi | 12-Sep-02/10:52 AM | Reply
Listen, I know you are a decent and passionate person, but your prejudices are getting in the way of what could be a positive communication. PLEASE RE-READ WHAT I WROTE! I hold no allegiance to the government of the United States. I do strongly believe in the
Ideals of the United States. Liberty for All, that includes you and the people living and striving where you live and strive. I personally am ashamed at the way my country has exploited the events of last Sept. To say it plainly, I am on your side regarding the issue at hand.

It is my greatest sadness to know that there are people losing their lives from violence caused by greed and differences in ideology. My ideology is Love and friendship. Please, please take the time to understand what I wrote previously. When you attach the name of 9/11 to your suffering it diminishes your struggle. You have completely mis-understood me. Remove the veil of hate you have towards the U.S. and see me for what I am. A human being just like you. We are more alike then we are different. Please read my poem I AM THE WIDOW OF A MURDERED HUSBAND. I never said "your tragedy cannot be like ours". Your tragedy is not like ours, yours is the greater.

Yes I believe in the power of poetry. In the end all regimes fall, the people and their art lives on. Can poetry stop the death of one child? Do you believe the grace of Love can be awakened in a murderer's heart? Do you believe poetry has the power to enlighten? Because I do. Has your suffering blinded you so that you cannot recognize a friend?
[n/a] kawakurdi @ 195.93.33.9 > god'swife | 12-Sep-02/3:30 PM | Reply
GW, I know you are a decent kind-hearted person too. I was not addressing you in particular but p&k and other readers too. I think some misynderstanding has occured here. I do not have any hate towards the U.S or entertain any other hate that might blur vision of common humanity. I just hate hatred wherever comes and injustice whoever causes and commits it. I appreciate what you wrote with consideration and sympathy. Just about the comparison and the title I am not with you but this does not mean an allout war or not being potential friends. I don't think attaching 9/11 diminishes my poem or enhances it. This was not the aim. The aim is simply to attarct attention that there are other similar tragedies all of which are equally serious and catastrophic. But 9/11 is not something small. It is very grave and great, unforgettable and unforgivable. So I don't think there should be comaprisons in quality. Human life is precious and sacred and must be so considered indiscriminately. Those who died on 9/11 are also martyrs because they were criminally killed without any justification other than blind hatred.

Sorry the experience I have only demonstrates how feeble and futile words are in the face of bombs, and logic in the face of power. Yes but still we write, breathe and love. My suffering has not blinded me but opened my eyes to the reality of huamnity: a jungle in which cannibals rule. But I never lost my faith in love and in small sweet gifts of kindness. I am going to raed your poem I AM ......
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.212.131 > kawakurdi | 12-Sep-02/4:34 PM | Reply
Oh yes, GW is so sweet and me and the other US readers, well, we are the ugly americans. For the last time I was simply talking about your poem! You have gone off the deep end with this. And you know, final thought, as you throw around the lovely term martyr.If it was not for religion we would not be in half the mess were are. I am sorry your writing in this poem doesn't interest me. Call me heartless, call me whatever, but the fact is it is rather weak and in need of another draft. Geez. Thanks GW for taking it out of the realm of the poem. That is what she wanted! I wasn't biting.
[5] god'swife @ 209.178.176.11 > poetandknowit | 12-Sep-02/4:48 PM | Reply
How do you know what she wanted? I wanted understanding so that it can be about the poetry. As far as baiting you, I don't see that as her motivation. She was expressing herself wrong or right. We all get our buttons pushed, sooner or latter. Does it help matters if you continue the cycle by taking this personally? This poem needs work, without question. We often veer from the focus of the poetry, and you are far from heartless.
[1] poetandknowit @ 65.101.212.131 > god'swife | 12-Sep-02/4:50 PM | Reply
I am not taking it personally; I am just an ugly American child, who hates the other ugly children regardless. I can take nothing to heart because I have none.
[6] Tintagiles @ 207.179.137.220 | 25-Sep-02/9:21 PM | Reply
I have to agree that it drifts a little before the rolling off of the names, which is a stunning moment. What can I say, your long post talking about your village actually moved me more than most of the poem did. 'For, how many, which' was wonderful. And Poetandknowit, I must ask if you have read this poem in the original language, and if so if you understand that original language, before you go saying that's it's no good in that language.
[4] horus8 @ 24.126.113.154 | 16-Dec-02/9:20 PM | Reply
"I put my head on the mist of your breast," wow. this was even better than that jude law movie. i need a cigarette and "The name of which village unsettled my heart" that's a hoot.sid and marty croft made a fortune doing this. you wont.C
[0] Freethinker1602 @ 68.48.88.129 | 2-Jan-03/3:08 AM | Reply
lost interest...
[9] -=SeTTle=- @ 140.186.49.230 | 4-Jan-03/10:43 PM | Reply
I loved this. A bit uh, a bit over the top in places but the freshness of the material more than makes up for it.
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