Poetry in Our Time
Hussein Habasch- (Kurdistan)
The Difference Between You and Me
The difference between you and me
Is that you sit cross-legged,
Leisurely savoring your glass of wine
While I wrap myself around myself
As I gulp from the glass of pain at the hospital.
You post the photo of your ninety something mother on Facebook,
Still in her prime.
And I remember the complexions of my seventy something
Mother with all her wrinkles.
You see her every day and place a peck on her cheeks,
Whereas I have seen her only twice in twenty-two years.
I kiss her photo every day in longing.
God bless our mothers!
You follow all football matches.
You laugh, comment, cheer and support this team against that one
While I follow all the agonies of my people in Afrin.
I weep, despond, curse and grieve for what has befallen them.
Your sister has a splendid house in the city center
Whilst my two sisters are vagrants, homeless and vagabonds,
A family from “Ghouta” occupied the house of one,
And a family from “Qalamun” occupied the house of the other.
You sit with your only brother
And debate how to split your father’s vast legacy
While I worry about the affairs of my brothers, exiled and
Fleeing, scattered around the globe.
I have no means to reunite them and to bring them to safety.
Your country is Germany.
My country is Kurdistan.
Two worlds apart…
Germany is flourishing and growing at each moment and every minute
While Kurdistan is slaughtered and murdered at each moment and every second.
Your country is exporting Leopard tanks to kill what breath
Was left in the lungs of my country!
And my compatriots who miraculously survived the killing machine
Are applying in scores for asylum in your country.
You were born with a golden spoon in your mouth,
And I was born with a poisonous challis in my mouth.
This is only a drop of an ocean of differences between you and me.
I shall not go on unfolding the pain that adjoined me as a twin since birth.
Despite the differences you see between us,
I fully understand why you celebrate life.
I never understand why I despair over it!
Translated by Azad Akkash
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My Mother’s Chants
- The Vision Chant
This morning, my mother was sitting alone at home
Mending my brother Mahmoud’s pants
Torn by yesterday’s mischief
The needle pierced her finger and warm blood flowed on the thread
The pants were stained and my mother’s thoughts were muddled
She swore to my father and the neighbors
That she saw me or my shadow
Or saw me without my shadow passing before her this morning
And when she saw me,
She was so eager; she was confused and was about to hug me
But the needle betrayed her and pierced her finger
Was I really there or was it my mother’s heart?
- The Longing Chant
Mother,
Thirty years… and I am still running with a barefoot heart
Whenever I see a woman wearing a long dress
Or a white scarf on her head
I call out to her: mother, mother
Mother!
Thirty years and six thousand miles
Exiled from roses,
The sunrise and the face of angels, mother’s face
Thirty years…
Whenever I write about a woman
Whenever I draw a woman
I find myself writing about my mother
Clothing the image with my mother’s colors
Thirty shrouds, thirty graves, thirty…
I am filled with hope and peace of mind
Whenever I lay my head on my mother’s chest.
- The Passion Chant
The inscriptions on the walls of our mud house
The yellow paint on the door
The family picture, carefully hung next to Imam Ali’s
The traces of a tattoo on the baking tin
The big quiet stone next to the door,
Always ready to receive guests
Shelves crowded with old newspapers
The lamp, philosophizing with a long luminous tongue
The hanging mat, always ready for prayer
The sacred laugh that brought all this passion
And this weariness is my mother’s laugh.
Translated by Sinan Anton
———————————-
A Dialogue
What is happiness, father?
It’s a bird that forgot his feathers
And wings in the desert, son!
What is life, father?
It’s a boiled egg
We are in it, son!
What is human, father?
He is an acrobatic dancer on the edge of the abyss, son!
What is isolation, father?
It’s separating the soul from all the world’s aspects, son!
What is love, father?
They said, it’s a healthy sickness, son!
What is future, father?
It’s a sun that only shines on the lucky ones, son!
What are tears, father?
It’s a rain that missed its way, son!
What is bravery, father?
It’s a ball of fire that rotates inside the heart, son!
What is pain, father?
It’s a shirt we wear from our birth to our death, son!
Translated by Muna Zinati
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Hussein Habasch is a poet from Afrin, Kurdistan. He currently lives in Bonn, Germany. His poems have been translated into English, German, Spanish, French, Persian, Uzbek, Albanian, Russian, Romanian, Italian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovenian, Lithuanian, Vietnamese, Nepali, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Turkish, Berber (Amazigh), Bosnian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Chinese, Greek, Mandarin (the language of Taiwan) and Tzotzil (the language of the Mayan peoples of Mexico), and has had his poetry published in a large number of international poetry anthologies. His books include: Drowning in Roses, Fugitives across Evros River, Higher than Desire and more Delicious than the Gazelle’s Flank, Delusions to Salim Barakat, A Flying Angel, No pasarán (in Spanish), Copaci Cu Chef (in Romanian), Dos Árboles and Tiempos de Guerra (in Spanish), Fever of Quince (in Kurdish), Peace for Afrin, peace for Kurdistan (in English and Spanish), The Red Snow (in Chinese), Dead arguing in the corridors (in Arabic) Drunken trees (in Kurdish), Boredom of a tired statue (in Kurdish), Flor del Espinillo (in Spanish) A Rose for the Heart of Life, selected Poems (in English) and Olvido (in Spanish). He participated in many international festivals of poetry including: Colombia, Nicaragua, France, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Germany, Romania, Lithuania, Morocco, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kosovo, Macedonia, Costa Rica, Slovenia, China, Taiwan, Cuba, Sweden, New York City, Sarajevo and Greece. Recipient of the Great Kurdish Poet Hamid Bedirkhan Award, awarded by the General Union of Kurdish Writers and Journalists. As well as the International “Bosnian Stećak” award for Poetry, awarded by the Bosnia and Herzegovina Writers Union. Bronze poetry award Aristotle from Naoussa international poetry festival in Greece.
MOHAN RANA (Hindi)
Sleeping Awake
What survives somewhere here, once forgotten
Is remembered day after day somewhere else
I had planted the shade of the uprooted tree,
The sky’s anguish in my breast,
Drawing a single breath
Shadows wrapped in those embraces,
Trembling at noon
She listens to my heart beating,
Your touch on my palm
What survives somewhere here, once forgotten
Is remembered day after day somewhere else
Translation from Hindi by Lucy Rosenstein and Bernard O’Donoghue
Crossing Over
For my father
I used to be the past myself,
But I will still
Forget everyone.
Now I hear everything,
Having become the music of the spheres
And I can see far away now,
I am the horizon.
Having gone so far away,
No pace perceived,
I am so close to you,
I share your breath.
A figure formed from dust,
I have become dust.
<Translation from Hindi by Lucy Rosenstein and Bernard O’Donoghue>
Reassurance
In this cold my very shadow froze.
I had hoped to revive with the coming of spring:
Hoped for light in these dark times
But as I walk, I remain in anguish
And my feet do not dry out with the season
Walking onward I forget that time is passing
Nothing comes to mind;
And then I see it and smile:
‘Making things up is not so difficult
So long as you believe in the truth.’
<Translation from Hindi by Lucy Rosenstein and Bernard O’Donoghue>
Mohan Rana (Hindi: मोहन राणा; born 9 March 1964) is a Hindi language poet from India. He has published eight poetry collections in Hindi. His poems have been translated and published by the Poetry Translation Centre.
Gopikrishnan Kottoor ( English)
Krishna
(The Light Within)
A Krishna nearly
As old as me.
I remember,
That evening,
When father bought him
From one of the pavement shops in Guruvayur.
He was there among many other gods,
Handsome in his crown among peacock feathers,
By the myriad bright brass lamps.
He was all gold against
A blue background.
When we came home,
We hung him on the wall.
A decoration piece
In father’s office room.
Yes, one day he fell
And broke his leg.
For years he was not found.
And one day
After the property partition,
I found him again.
He had gone under
My mother’s photograph
And with her
To the attic.
I dusted him,
I took him with me.
His gold is mostly gone,
But
Now he’s with me.
A leg broken,
Still hanging on to his calf and flute.
I light a candle for him
Every evening,
And looking at him,
I remember
My dead brother,
My smoking father,
His coma corpse sailing quietly to the electric crematorium
Making a small occasional sound
As though he feared that fire
And came alive;
My lovely mother
Who died alone in a hospital bed, calling out her children’s names,
I remember the rose garden,
Back in our home,
That night jessamine,
And its fragrance
Not letting me sleep,
And I give him a place,
The first among gods,
I don’t care
If he is no more divine,
But he is secretly mine.
And to him,
I don’t know why
I like him so much
No more gold,
Aging, broken,
Not too good
To look at
As he used to be before,
But to him,
Is my silence,
My lost prayer.
2.
God Smiled
God smiled.
It was then
That I saw his teeth.
White teeth
Shining like stars in the night
Yet his face was dark.
It was then that I realized
That he was a carnivore
Who eats the gentle wild buck
In the forest,
The birds flying happily in the skies
My dear God
Who with his sparkling white teeth
Tears me apart
And
Eats me.
3
Night Nurse
One night she appeared.
She just stood there
All white.
She asked me
Are you happy
Smiled,
Bent over
And said
Goodnight.
I do not know her name
I never saw her again
But
Even now
She brings home
A night that
Remembers its stars.
Gopikrishnan Kottoor’s recent poetry appears in Acumen, The Antonym, Madras Courier , Best Asian Poetry, Converse, The Year Book of Indian Poetry in English, among others. A National poetry award winner, Gopi Kottoor’s Swan Lake (Selected Poems) is his eighteenth book of poems. He edited the poetry anthology ‘English Poetry from Kerala: Seven Contemporary Poets.’
Blog. https://gopikottoor.blogspot.com
Ananta Kumar Singh
A Little Drop Of Water
A little drop of water
Evoke the imagine of the creature
A little drop of water
Refresh the tree branches
A little drop of water
The elegant beauty of nature
A little drop of water
Splendour bloom of the flower
A little drop of water
Express the feeling of the writer
A little drop of water
Monsoon is the season of love
Ananta Kumar Singh is an Indian poet. He hails from the Bargarh Indian state of Odisha. He pursued his Under Graduation at Ravenshaw University, Cuttack.
Nyamthian Tangjang 
1.
I am pouring it all out today.
I loved you and I don’t hate you,
Anymore.
What if reality was only a dream?
Shall we pretend like our eyes were closed,
Because there would be no more regrets?
Or should I be sad for the loss of all my memories
That I had made.
All the things I had learned from my mistakes
Will be taken away from me,
And I might do the same old things again.
And call it a deja-vu of some kind.
We lie
We pretend
We do things that are forbidden
We break hearts
We became rebels
You know what they say
We are born sinners.
I want to laugh,
Without the fear of crying
later.
Nyamthian Tangjang is a writer and the author of the poetry book “BLUE:God even made the sky blue, as if , it knew.” Her poem has been published in an anthology book “never tear us apart” and local magazine. She enjoys music, good food and healthy companionship. She also like learning and is a curious soul. And she is continuously working to be the best version of herself.
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