SALAH NIAZI was born 1935 in Iraq and has lived in Britain since 1963. He is a poet, critic and translator and was founder-editor of the Arabic literary journal Al-Ightirab al-Adabi. He has published seven collections of poetry and has translated into Arabic Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth, and James Joyce's Ulysses. His poem discussed in class is 'The Runaway President' . http://www.masthead.net.au/issue9/biogs9.html

Extract from a long poem
THE RUNAWAY PRESIDENT   by Salah Niazi
 http://www.masthead.net.au/issue9/niazi.html

Even I, the undersigned, cannot believe it
Is it true that Salah Niazi
Who was born to a poor family in Nasiriyah
Who afterwards scratched a scant living in Baghdad
Who marginally is "living and partly living"
For forty years in London
Is happier tonight
Than Saddam Hussein the runaway president?
Happier than him? Himself?
Even I, the undersigned, cannot believe it.

Is it true that the 24 hours of his day
Are longer than mine
And every coming hour for him is more bitter
Than the one before?

But even if his shelters 
Are made of the finest Italian marble
And the furniture is shipped
From the best German factories
Even if he surrounds himself with Babylonian lions
And the walls are sewn
With the most seductive Pompeian girls
Still, nothing is sweeter than fresh air
Nothing is softer than morning light

To begin with
Shelters are living tombs
Time is stagnant
Moreover, the hours have no ends
Have no beginnings
They are all alike, all alike
Sleep also,
Has no beginning, no end 
But what is the use of waking up
If you are wanted?

That is the difference between us
I - like all wretched people - 
Just wait and wait
Hoping that the hour of deliverance is coming
A small hope, yet it keeps us going somehow.
But you, like all dictators
Think only of how to be safe
Frightened even of a friendly handshake

I, the undersigned, cannot believe 
That the wretched all over the world
Are happier than the runaway president himself
Happier than his brother Barzan himself
Happier than his two sons Uday and Qusai

Only yesterday I got the gist
Of the old Arab saying
"Adversities never cease circling around tyrants"

Circles no doubt start from just a tiny dot
Then bigger and bigger they grow
Only nooses of gallows
Are first bigger than a head,
Then narrower and narrower they become
Until the flow of life is stopped forever.

There was no thing beyond the reach of Saddam
Iraq to him is one huge stage
He is the only actor on it
His costumes vary
From one scene to another
Not unlike those of Hollywood actors

O Saddam, the runaway president,
It is indeed a daily scene that 
Helicopters are hovering
Above your white she-camels
When sent to pasture 

No music could possibly stir you
Like hand-clapping.
With  your portraits
You have negated art exhibitions
Your military decorations
Are more colourful than gardens in spring

Even when you go fishing
The cameras are like sunflowers
Fixed upon you for hours on end
For this reason,
Television screenings are suspended
News bulletins are postponed
Your propaganda machine
Is the biggest machine in Iraq,
Bigger than any mountain
And longer than both
The Euphrates and the Tigris put together

Your name is engraved 
On the ancient Babylonian walls
Amongst Biblical names

O runaway president,
Listen just once in your life!
If you have escaped the trap this time 
I can assure you it will not be for long
Even this temporary safety is misleading
It is deadlier, if you think about it
Fear will suck dry your red cells
And sooner rather than later
You will waste away

First, you lose interest in your appearance
Then you will find no need to shave
And like exposed garbage you will start to stink

You've waded in blood for over 30 years
No consequence could have stopped you
Do I dare to compare you to others?
God forbid! God forbid!
Macbeth's conscience was alive from beginning to end 
But as dead as a hoof is your conscience
Even Lady Macbeth
Cannot be compared to Lady Saddam
Did she walk in her sleep?
Did she hold a candle or talk deliriously?
And no medicine could possibly cure her

How can I compare you to Ali Baba?
Although you are both crafty thieves 
Ali Baba's robberies are artful and thrilling
At least he is frightened of the people he robs
That's why he draws up his plans in great secrecy
Like a first-rate novelist
The events take their importance 
From their consequence. 

Moreover, none of his victims
Died of hunger
Or became a beggar
Or was thrown outside the borders
With only his pyjamas on

When Macbeth killed sleep
He slept no more
Saddam likewise killed sleep
But also killed art
He is the first to initiate
Mass graves in Iraq
Bones are heaped like dried firewood
Thoraxes are wrecked
Insteps are dismantled

I saw it
With my own eyes, I saw it
A machine-gun made of pure gold
Just a present 
From a father to his son
From Saddam to Uday
It was a real machine-gun
It kills if fired
And Uday fires the gun
For amusement - at will.

But the most frustrating thing is:
Thirty years were stolen
Saddam has stolen thirty years and run away
By God, from every Iraqi citizen
The runaway president has stolen thirty years
They cannot be compensated for at all
They cannot be recovered at all.
 

    London, April 2003
 

Translated by the author with thanks to Sian Williams
For more poems of Salah Niazi, see Banipal Nos 1 and 8
 

http://www.masthead.net.au/issue9/niazi.html

 

Back From War                                                     

by Salah Niazi

Outside the barracks
Folk are waiting apprehensively
As if at the hour of the trumpet.

The war is over
The survivors are coming back,
At a distance, the military lorries are in sight
Guns are heaved up lengthwise
Above the soldiers’ heads
As if floating up to their necks
These are the remnants of the still-alive-and-kicking
Shoulders are without epaulettes,
Uniforms without buttons,
Their arms are just like oars in a dry river
Plying from one arid wave to another
Crying Noah, Noah, Noah
Remnants of those still-alive-and-kicking.

In an assembly like this
There is no grieving for lost limbs,
Any strap of a person is enough
The important thing is still to be alive,
Lost limbs are of no concern.

Every soldier on the coming lorries
Is counted as alive and dead – both at once
Alive and dead both at once
Uncertainty and certainty
Life and death
Are interwoven now

In a moment, the truth will be made plain,
The dead will be dead forever,
And the living will be in part alive.

Critical moments are, no doubt, shattering
They can save, or otherwise kill, in an instant
Like a flash of lightning, unawares it catches you
Like a flood, it does not give you time
To collect your belongings
Or put on your clothes half decently.

In such a gathering
Joy and grief soon will be two separate things
And selfishness will show itself
As the most powerful element in man’s nature.

She is like a stricken boat
A woman searching for her son
Is like a stricken boat.
Inches away, an embrace
So strong that
There will be no dividing them.

Feasts and obsequies
Are two neighbouring trees
Their fingers are interlacing now
But how different they are.

http://www.epic-usa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=264

http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts-iraqivoices/article_1429.jsp