Four Poems
Amal
al-Jubouri
Co-translated by the author with David Allen Sullivan
To Marcelle,
Iraqi
Jew,
daughter of Rachel,
princess of
granddaughter of
descendant of schizophrenic
symbol of Iraqis’ injustice to each other.
_________________________
Its water
is in our blood
Tonight we dragged the
and you
realised
into a
travelling city of departures,
that the
diaspora can settle into
train
stations stolen from our fates,
that
prisoners
are
flowers
that
carry the aroma of empty spirits.
I made you jump back 2,600
years to our homeland of exiles,
our
homeland that became our haven, suspended
between
thieves and dictators.
Razqi
flowers are white-robed orphans
that
celebrate water and dance dew to the roof
on mornings
when we sleep there.
We descend at dawn
before the sun kisses us,
descend to
beds of desire
and
continue in sleepiness, in the smell of wet dust
that
flows from the taps of our homes.
There, in the Jewish
district of Bataween,
or in
orchards of Karrada,
near Violette’s brick palace of a house,
or
behind the home of Ellen and David Khalaaschi,
behind
Uncle Daniel’s,
we
sleep on, seemingly forever.
We want to collect all
the flowers,
all the
sighs of the gardeners, all the male lovers’ sighs
as
they surreptitiously nibble on their women’s lips,
safe
from religion
and
norms
and
laws.
Razqi
petals escape silently
to the
banks of the
they
listen to the shy scuff of our footsteps,
to the
sighs
escaping
from Iraqi prisons that sail with us.
When
we’re there, we cry for the
to
carry us here,
and
when we’re here, we cry for the imprisoned
drained by
injustice and sadness,
domesticated by
the prisons of turbaned extremists,
to
carry us there.
We cry for the river,
but we can’t cry on its shores.
We cry because its
water is in our blood —
flows
from here to there, from there to here.
We cry because
captivity is pillowed with soft tears
in our
auctioned homeland.
So why, when we talk of
love,
do we
return to the destruction of the temple,
to
this betrayal?
I told you, this is
I wish I could wrap
myself in her,
embrace
her,
so the
rain could tap into me
God’s messages in semaphore.
When I touch the Thames
I touch the
but my
fears for
It’s not just you . . .
it’s not
just the
it’s not
just the razqi,
not
just the security,
not
just the wishes,
but
everything —
every
single thing —
all of
it
sinks
into
silence.
_________________________
The Promised Land
Is this the promised land you spoke of?
Is this the land the
Lord told you to leave
Is this the veil?
Every time I try to
lift it I smell . . .
What is that? . . . God?
With you, and over you,
I pray.
With me, and over me,
please pray
for God
to tear apart his veil.
Every time our souls
pray
we
bless the rain
that
kisses believer’s hands.
Each time more darkness
is dispersed
the
light of his voice shines brighter:
Be patient Hagar,
he’s within us.
Hold to me.
See?
He embraces all of us,
embraces our troubles,
drives Hagar to
tears
whenever we
perform this hajj.
And we pray
that we own God —
owe God —
that we’re owned by God,
until time’s
eclipsed.
_________________________
I found
everything except for . . .
The land was our land.
The homeland was our homeland.
It was unfamiliar with
borders.
Our identities were
worn like our faces. They knew us.
She slept in our wombs:
Mine and Sara’s and Miriam’s.
Abraham,
if
you’re listening to what I say,
or
reading what I write, God has opened an account
at the
post office of the new life.
I don’t give a fig if
you read my commandments and teachings
for God
owns all our skies and all postal accounts,
but if
you listen or read
you’ll
know
that I
found your children.
Some have forgotten heaven
lies beneath our feet,
that
everything is a breath from the Lord
which
spirits over them.
I found them afraid,
hiding
fear in a hand-held mirror,
monitoring
themselves on cameras,
using
cell phones to summarize their lives,
which
they then downloaded to computers . . .
so
much for our fates.
Their fear made me
afraid,
but I
was patient as Job,
because I
thought of you waiting for me,
just as
Hagar waited for you all her life.
I found Omar bin Al-Khatab
and
asked him about Ali.
I found Zainab in Nouriya’s face,
Hassan in Sami’s face.
I found . . .
and I
found . . .
and
found . . .
everything . .
.
saw
everything.
I visited the prophet
at the Aqsa mosque
and
grew tired of the guard’s questions because he forgot,
O Lord
that you
sent his prophet to call the tribes to one qibla,
my qibla,
there in
the peninsulars’ prison.
I had to repeat, like a
parrot, Allah is Allah
and
Mohammed is his prophet.
What is this Abraham, you didn’t teach them the art of welcoming guests?
I went to complain in
the hope he would end the heresy of borders
and
issue a decree:
Homelands
are for people, religions are for God.
We are but members of
your family.
Our home is here,
but our
people are here and there, there and here.
Who? Why?
How did this happen?
I hid my anger at you
and your God
so I
wouldn’t called ungrateful.
At the edge of the Aqsa we sat
facing the
wailing wall
where we
directed our hopes.
With the hymns of the
Church of the nativity and resurrection
we
sang.
I remembered
whose
name they wanted to rape,
as
they raped our history
And I heard a voice say
to us:
Pray,
sing,
stay. This is your
land!
How do we stay in a land
that has
been made foreign?
It’s under siege.
A siege of ignorance,
a
siege of desertification,
a
crisis of the besieged mind.
And you and the lowest
of your people, the fools,
surround me
at all
times . . .
except
here.
I cornered you with
questions, asked:
Why did you command Abraham
the way you did?
and is it true
that the Torah is
your book?
What of your last book?
Darkness does not
malign truth. Darkness can’t.
I found many things in
your books,
I found everything
me,
her,
them,
but no
truth called Him.
I found an illusory man who sold his heart,
found
shrapnel of the ashes of his fires,
found in
a creation fable all his women
found his
son,
but not
find one letter,
one
pulse-beat,
of a
human called Father of Prophets,
which my
heart calls my man,
which
other women call their man,
which
Ismail calls his father.
I didn’t find him, O
Allah . . .
for we
are the ones who created him
in the
auction house of religions,
inherited
from all our wars,
and
because I wanted it to end I started . . .
because of
you,
and
because you are who you are,
and
because we all know
and
twist the words
and
practise hypocrisy in the markets
where
we’re sold as slaves
in the
course of miracles,
in the
telling of fables,
in the
name of religion,
they
invented you,
claimed
ownership over you,
fought
over your pedigree,
doubted
and
inherited hatred and stories,
so in
the ruins of religions and their protective projected scripts,
in the
talismans of storytellers, in the keepers of the paranormal
they
sold you before you existed . . .
so who
but you will show them the way?
Your strength is that
you were a nation
that
fragmented into pieces.
You were not actually
born, nor was I.
The searcher in a
stormy resurrection says:
Take off the veil of veils,
I will bring to end
every cosmic
argument about a lost door
or a magical
legend,
every illusion
called you . . .
For I have found in the altar of my heart —
my altered heart —
my altered mind —
the altar of my
mind — everything except for You —
everything
except
You
_________________________
Apology
You’re the secret religion of
our childhood places,
you’re the memory of Karrada,
the Baghdadi neighbourhood we
frequented,
and Shamaash’s
house — your father’s house —
was the first brick that helped
build
This was not the
but the mecca
of all inclusive Baghdadis.
If only they knew you were
forcibly evicted,
that the scent of razqi in their gardens
is your lingering perfume,
they’d chase away the parasites and
blood-suckers
that’ve drained your
that’ve made
They’d abrade the Iraqis who
sang in the Farhud of 1941
their infamous songs as they
expelled the Jews:
How good the Farhud
has come,
our work here is
almost done!
Your city’s enemies
once watched your mother reading
in a sleep-inducing chant.
She packed love for people
the way others pack food for days
of want.
She swears she’ll only let you
drink from
only wash you in the
Mira, your mother, was the
mother of
She was saddened by your
father’s sorrow
when you shouted at the world
to proclaim your Iraqi birth.
The traditions were the same
ones Muslims buried
after becoming Muslim.
If a child’s buried alive we
must ask, for what crime was she killed?
Tribes still measure females
with an eye
on the balance sheet of profit
and loss.
The weapon of honour.
A female born with feet
pointing east
is a good omen, as is a crow who
screeches
in the face of mother
not recovered yet from the child
birth’s ripping.
Whenever a new year begins in
the city gives birth to new
houses of brick.
From her groves
the hanging gardens of the palace
have grown
in the secret nooks and crannies
of the walls.
Whenever they ripen, harvest
is eminent.
The harvest of the farhud is another holocaust.
It reminds grandchildren of
the holocaust-like hell
of the sanctions.
Their harvest is bitter hatred
and ignorance.
They want the country’s head.
Where Babylon Hotel once stood
there’s talk about raping the palace,
your home . . .
Your first and original
homeland.
Your country, strangled with
stranger’s whips.
O mother of
your daughter changed the name
from Amal
to Mira because she did
not wish
to share her name with the
tribes,
the Babylonian Iraqis,
the Baghdadis.
She wanted not to be one of
them.
But those who wield war’s
erasers,
who practice erasure through
displacement,
raped your
They hired your family to
drain the spinal cord
of the homeland, to end the flow
of life.
The remaining Iraqis remain
sick,
unable to recover from the crisis.
Displacement separates us into
separate camps
in
they only knew mud houses,
only got taught the first lessons
of civilization.
They co-opted forgetfulness,
were won over by those who stole
your dream.
She’s
She’s a lung that breathes
for her diaspora-dispersed
people.
You wished you could say
farewell to her
when you greeted the heavy
visitor.
You and she should have left
from there.
You wished the visitor
would hurry to arrest your breath,
so infatuated with her you were.
You quoted Ahmed Safi Al-Najafi:
We hear all about
We’ll never see her,
for they’ve
written her into a revenge story
they haven’t tired
of telling yet.
Revenge writes in the
impoverished language of death,
in the language of lies, in the
hypocrisies of nations,
and in poverty’s elementary
curses.
They’ve forged new features
for our
despoiling history’s virginity.
They’ve forced her to bow her
head
after they threw acid to blind the
light from her eyes.
You alone, of all our
afflicted people,
returned to us.
You carried her greatest
secret —
and returned
The mark of the Iraqi maqam,
of Salima Pasha,
of Nadhum Al-Ghazali,
of Afifa Iskander,
of Mayda Nezhet,
and of Yusif Omar.
The princess of cities
and the creator of worlds,
slave of the cleansings
and the myths of denomination,
victim of bombings
and history’s revenge,
history’s atonements,
O widow of recuperating
remove the black veils from your
face.
O icon of sadness and loss
rise with the mothers,
the displaced,
the migrating,
those slaughtered in silence — by
silence —
for who but you
can bring back hope to Baghdadis?
_________________________
Notes:
The above poems are selected from the author’s forthcoming volume You
Engraved the Torah on my Eyes [حفرتَ
التوراة. في عيني ]
Its water is in our blood:
Elen Dangoor
is the granddaughter of the Grand Rabbi of the Jewish community at the time,
and the wife of David Khalaaschi, the son of Ezra Khalaaschi, one of the wealthiest Baghdadi families.
Dawod Khalaaschi
never visited
Apology:
The Farhud was the pogrom carried out against
the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on 1–2 June 1941,
immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The term
has entered Iraqi dialect and memory. The term Hawassim
was used after the fall of the regime to refer to the collective acts of
robbery when authority fails. The songs from the time dishonour Iraqis. I
apologise to Iraqi Jews who suffered, and whose identities were
stripped from them. I apologise to all the faiths of
Violet’s daughter changed from Amal to
Mira after the Farhud because Amal is a Muslim name. Memoirs of Eden’s Paradise
collects Violet’s writings on daily life in
I found everything except for . . .
Nouriya’s father and brother were
killed during the Farhud events. After 60
years of enforced migration from
Farha is one of the Jews of Iraq
who was forced to leave to
Religious bodies in