Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab’s Poem “Because I Am a Stranger”
Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab eloquently expressed his longing for Iraq in the following poem:
Because I am a stranger
Because beloved Iraq is far away
And here I am yearning
For it, I call out: Iraq
It echoes back to me as I cry
The lament resonates
I feel that I have crossed the distance
To a world of despair that does not respond to my call
If I shake the branches
Nothing falls but sorrow
Stones
Stones and no fruit
Even the eyes
Stones
And the moist air
Stones
It drags me down with some tears
Stones
My cries and the rocks of my mouth
Oh, a wind roams the desert
Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab’s Poem “We Will Not Part”
In a tone of heartbreak, he wrote the following poem:
She murmured: “We will part”
A spirit burns upon your lips
A voice like the raging of thunder
Expands within … and my heart the horizon
The space has narrowed and has blurred in my sight
The light of stars and shattered radiance
So upon my waning eyelids and in
My tears, shards of it or pieces
What of parting? Does love not unite us
In a bond we embrace?
Love that sparkles in promises of light
And wafts with the steps’ fragrance
Oh sister, is your silence filled with doubt?
What of parting? Is there not a reason for it?
Sadness trembles in your eyes
And despair stirs upon your lips
Your hands are cold: like my tomorrow
And upon your forehead a thought reproached
Your secret remains unyielding
Oh, a deep sigh: yet cannot leap
Until you grew weary of it and I find it tedious
The length of lingering and fatigue prevails
I fear for you, and my lips quiver
To the kisses inflamed
Then you turned, delicate in skin
Sighing and squeezing my hand
You murmured while lost in thought:
“I fear for you a sorrow of tomorrow”
So the stars almost scatter in grief
In her space like a false chill
Do not leave me, do not leave me to spoil
My day, what could tomorrow be?
And if you smile today in joy
Let the features of eternity beam forth
My life before our meeting was
Nothing but years creeping within my being
Oh sister, let my pain in love please you
Enjoy your passion and smile
Bring forth the flame, for I am not afraid of it
My love was not the first of flames
I remain burned, capturing me
A fire from illusions like darkness
Black with no light to shine
Like a fever that brings no dreams
Bring your flame for within it is a spark
Guiding my steps even to oblivion
It is a glimmer I threw into existence
Joyful, dancing barefoot
Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab’s Poem “Was it Love?”
From his collection on love:
Do you call what flung me into intoxication?
Or is it madness of wishes? Or a passion?
What is love? Lamentation and smiles?
Or the fluttering of ribs in longing, when the meeting
Is between our eyes, so I lower my head, fleeing from desire?
To a sky that does not quench my thirst, if I?
Come seeking it, except in a haze
The doe-eyed ones, if they became a shadow in my drink
The cups have dried in the hands of my companions
Without having even tasted the bubbles
Prepare, oh cup, from your sweet edges, a place
Where one day our lips may meet
In fluttering and passion
And distance that has spread in its horizons the shadow of closeness
How my wounded heart longs, if only you would not respond
From afar to love, or from near
Ah, if you had not known, even before the encounter, of a lover!
Excerpt from “A Stranger on the Gulf”
The wind pants in the scorching heat like a corpse, at dusk;
And on the sails, it is folded or unfurled for departure
The Gulf is teeming with them, laboring and wandering the seas
From every corner, half-clad and
On the sands, by the Gulf
Sat the stranger, gazing, bewildered in the Gulf
As he extinguishes columns of light fueled by his mourning
Above the waves roared foam and noise
“A sound erupted within the depths of my bereaved soul: Iraq
The tide rises, like a cloud, like tears in the eyes
The wind cries out to me: Iraq”