I AM AN IRAQI MAN -2
I don’t like the darkness, or its cold voice, but my hand was frosted as a woman’s coat and my friends’ hearts were hung on the absent trees of the coldness.
I am Muslim from Iraq and as any human I like the sun and I have dreams.
I am not an American or British, so I have no friend from these lands. Yes, my father had headband, and my grandfather had a woolen mantle, but this can’t make me a rejected creature
I know the gazes of the birds and the sounds of the water and I know the tales of the moon and the dreams of the lovers, but this won’t help to prevent the rejection.
I am not an ugly creature, and the veil of my mother is to keep beauty for special moment and not to hide the repulsiveness.
I am a Muslim writer from Iraq and I’m not a terrorist as you think.
I am a dry leaf from Iraq, know nothing about the beauty or artists, and all what I know is the blood and tales of the war. Here, in my broken chest, is a pale boy, lives in this wide earth with a small soul and walks in this shining world with a hidden face.
I am an Iraqi man, and my soul was kneaded with the war’s tales and the sad sumac. My streets, which are immersed in the war’s perfume, had straggled in the desert of the sadness, and like our girls, they always dream of fireless days.
I, as any shadowed tale, tried to hide my dead flowers by a worn-out mantle, so you can’t see any picture of the revived fragrance.
I am the mantle man; my water is dirty and all these cloaks can’t conceal its sadness.
I am the nude man, and it is not strange to see my feet immersed deeply in every futile tale.
I am the mantle of sadness; my land is a picture of crying and my women are the boats of the hardship.
I am living in a small city and after every Friday’ prayer there was a demonstration in its narrow streets. I like the demonstration because of its modernism and because it was prevented in my country for decades.
I am not a revolutionary man and I always try to walk beside the wall, but my small bird has an ardent soul, and at the time of Saddam’s falling he quickly changes his color to a yellowish democratic one.
I am the blindness’ son know nothing about amazing orange of sunset.
I am a gray man, know nothing about the vivid perfumes, and my dreams are faded as an old wood.
I am the son of wars, and all what you can see is my crippled remnants
I don’t remember anything about the peaceful dresses, because our town brides had been killed before their weddings, and our land’s face was smashed by unknown.
I am a man from East; my color is different from that of my western friend, but in spite of this we are in deep intimacy which the moon’s lovers can’t imagine.
I am an Iraqi man, and my soul was kneaded with the kebab’s sumac. My dreams had immersed in the kebab’s perfume and straggled in the desert of sad sumac.
I am from the south where the trees are dry and the rivers are waterless. Our sky is dark and our sun is fogy.
I am from that south where everything is colorless. The fields have daughters but the streets are always blind.
I am disappearing with happiness in the mothers’ light. My heart, like a bird on an icy bough, will immerse in that moment which come from their chants.
I am rivulet water, and at her gaze, I am a motionless leaf; my love is that wind which can cross all clouds, and that grass which hug all world goats, but the mother light is a different world and impossible in its oneness.
I am a farmer from the south bring nothing in my pocket but oranges. Look at my face, it is brown and look at my hands, they are white.
I am from here, from the south; an Eastern man with a dreamy soul.
I am a dreamer from the south; my heart bears nothing but simple love and my mouth smiles without cause.
Anwer Ghani
Physician and Writer
Iraq
