Editor’s Choice

Faleeha Hassan is a poet from Iraq, who now lives in USA, She is the poet who suffered from  war directly.  her words are most important to understand the war and its reaction of common people.

 

She is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, and playwright born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967, who now lives in the United States. Faleeha was the first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq. She received her master’s degree in Arabic literature, and has now published 26 books, her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosnian, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek, Serbia, Albanian, Pakistani, Romanian, Malayalam, Chinese, ODIA, Nepali and Macedonian language. She is the Pulitzer Prize Nomination 2018, PushCaret Prize Nomination 2019.
Member of International Writers and Artists Association.
Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020,
Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021)
One of the Women of Excellence selection committees 2023
Winner of women the arts award 2023
Member of Whos’ Who in America 2023
SAHITTO AWARD, JUDGING PANEL 2023
Winner of HerStory Award from women’s Federation for world peace new Jersey 2024
Cultural Ambassador – Iraq, USA since 2018
Cultural Ambassador and worldwide literary advisor PEN CRAFT Bangladesh

 

WAR’S DRIZZLE

 

Our mothers, who loved us more than we do ourselves,
Were baffled by wars.
They forgot to anoint our lives with balms to ward off battles.
That’s why every time a king sobers up
And slips on victory’s shoes, crafted from the skins of loyal soldiers,
And breathlessly
Delivers rotten orations
From the dais of prevarication,
Once he opens his mouth
The words’ that drizzle spatters us,
And our lives fester with
War’s abscesses.

 

BEFORE MY FRIEND GOT KILLED

The sky actually was blue
The streets were more spacious
Women were sitting on the thresholds of their houses in the afternoon
Telling amazing stories to each other
The cafes were full of men’s laughter
My father smiles as he tells her:
Don’t take Faleeha to the hair salon
Give your hair the color of the sun
And leave the glamour of night to my daughter’s hair
She smiles back and says
Her name is not poetic
If it were me, I would change it
We all laugh
My mother was more compassionate
She would say
Eat from one plate so your emotions will not be lost
And like ants on a candy bar, we would gather together
Oh, my friend
After your death
The world wore a garment of dust
The war had swept away the thresholds of our homes
Women now wear worries
Permanent sadness
Cafes are bustling with the songs of false victory
Men’s voices are hoarse from smoke
And from drinking scorching defeats
Oh, my friend
Your death spread the snow colour on my hair
If you had stayed a little bit longer
You would have seen how my name was won
But death betrayed you
As it did my mother
And my father as well
All their advice fell on stone ears
Our lives filled up with wars, poverty, and exile
When I shout
Oh father ,
Mother,
Brother,
Sister,
There is no echo coming back
And regret bites my heart
Oh, my friend
Can you stop your Specter from dancing in my memory
Give me ten minutes to sleep
The smoke from the plane that killed you
Suffocates my days
……………
Dedicated to my friend Mason Hassan Kamuna which she was killed during the Iraq-Iran war

 

WHEN I DRINK TEA IN NEW JERSEY

 

Like a girl who writes poetry about a boy she has never seen
My day sits with all this disappointment
Counting her fleeting moments
I remember my mother using the smell of onions
To shed her tears in the kitchen
For the absence of my father
Who climbed his life war by war
Whenever he wore his military belt
He wished that war was just an old shoe
He could take it off whenever he liked
And he didn’t need to think of fixing it at the cobbler’s shop
I remember my brother
Who asked in his letters–
When will the war understand that we are not good at dealing with death?
I remember us forty years ago
We were kids, very much kids
With colourful clothes and hearts
It was enough for us to see a balloon
To drown in big laughter
I remember all this now
When I drink my tea
And
I practice my loneliness.

 

AFTER FORTY YEARS OF SNOW

Do you remember the watch you gave to me wrapped in a poem?
It is still bound to my soul’s meaning
The more time passes
The more the letters jump into my heart artery
My heart is now pumping flirtation
How many times I have wished
That if my city were not surrounded by graves
Then like a little girl
I would wait for you in a secret garden
Come on!
Take off this thick absence
As thick as a New Jersey coat in the winter time
Melt off the snow that has stacked on the lines of your messages
Mow the grass that has grown on your tongue
Don’t save a sea of tears for me
I am not a mermaid
Make yourself present with words
Woo me
Let me stop demanding my rights
And thrive by the touch of your fingers as they play with my hair
Let me fool myself again
And see you as center of my universe.………………………………..

 

IN NIGHTS OF WAR

 

My mother forced us to go to sleep before sunset
She told us
The warning siren will take the sleep from your eyes
Just as the raid will take the houses from their streets
We run toward everything
We eat from fear of running out of food
We drink water without thirst
And like chicks
We crawl into her abaya
And sleep without sleeping
At dawn
We run toward the windows
And open our eyes wide
When we start counting all the destroyed houses around us
And thank God
For the blessing of sleep

 

MY FATHER’S FEET

When I was a kid
I saw them
Running
And
Running
After the bus
That took him to his job every morning
And returned him to us late every day
Carrying so much love in his heart
And bags of food
To our souls and our mouths
Starving forever
Running
After our school books
Which we were covering with our prayers
To protect us from the sticks of our principal and teachers
Running
After my mother
Whose days all finished in different hospitals
And when I grew up a little bit
I saw them
Still running
But in military boots
For days never ending
Covered with dust from Khorramshahr* and Dezful*
And when he stretched out his feet on the floor
We all ran to them with joy
And like a big pillow filled with dreams we slept on them
………………………
*Two Iranian cities where the Iran – Iraq war was signed in 1980

 

WAR MUSEUM

 

Whenever the dictators get bored of their long daytime hours
Which they spend sitting on their stinking chairs
They open the door to their War Museum
And force us to enter
We pay with our lives as a ticket for this entry
To see:
The remains of soldiers we played with in our childhood
A picture of my grandmother
Who, when she saw the oppressor’s face
Predicted our orphans would come soon
A Picture of my father’s military boot
Which he lost on the border of a city
We thought belonged to us
Maps of cities where…..
There is nothing left but their names
Melted onto the tongues of kids
Women’s abayas chewed up by the treads of tanks
Medals who could not find a deserving chest to hang on
Large jars filled with the tears and sorrows of mothers
And
Helmets
Helmets, helmets
Helmets, helmets, helmets
Of unknown soldiers
But……
On the door of this museum
They put a big red sign
“No Exit”

 

WHEN I HEAR THE SIREN

 

I remember
Like birds afraid of their feathers catching fire
We scrambled to hide
Whenever we heard the siren
My little sister’s voice hits the walls of the room
She screams
Hold me!
As she stands still in her place
And her eyes sink into a sea of fear
Words break on my tongue
We run towards our mom and we hold her hands tightly
And our whole little world begins shaking from the roars of the fighter planes
Now
I thank the siren a lot
Every time I hear it
It reminds me of the taste of my mother’s hands
When she was trying hard to strengthen our thin roots.