By : Hassan Mutlak  (the Lorca of Iraq)

Translated by : Safaa Sheikh Hamad

Masks

The poet is someone who writes a poem only to misplace it later.

Look,

"Hegel" is a great man

For he lost the philosophy

"Gaston Bachelard" did not find

Because he looked at the ceiling upside down

And  thought of thinking,

Because the irony was still standing

They all died ...

Only those sophists men

Lost knowledge

By never speaking of it

They are great

For they admitted earlier

The sound of the sparrow

Is louder than Aristotle

The names of the night

I think I love you

*     *      *

The sky is high

And barking ascends from all around

Croaking in the ponds

And when the wolves howl

That is the time for  insects to wake up

Evil is an idea

Love is the bread instinct

And one has only to cry between the two pillars

Freedom has a black taste, like trees

And the female is a release from slavery and the devil

Oh, positive cold

        Croaking

                     Headache

Which one of us knows the other's  cure?

And who glorifies his companion in the prayers?

The moon has fallen down in the swamp

Where the anthem of frogs started

We both fell in the bed

Glorifying each other's wounds

Yet,

The lightening

                     Rustling

                                Lust

                                      And the harping are of the names of the night

Countryside song

Grasshoppers landed on fire

Then the bags, calculators, women, the sheep and the axe

The scythe was there  too ;

Hamdan is a thorn before  T. V.

The wrinkles and the slopes are there

It happens that we get divided by "hello" .

We cross hearts  to come back to us

Whenever the streets  get us lost

The woman is a thorn

The bed is the bones of dead animals

The grasshoppers are precious

Like coffee

The sheep is ------?

*     *      *

Hamdan is amongst us

Farms land on his shoulders

So, he dreams of the Amazon

He is these faraway farms

And the eggs of partridges  .

Ishtar

Ishtar,

My daughter:

From the faraway exile

I write the smashed poem

For you, the lady of the beautiful shores

Winds and soldiers surround old Babylon

Ever since I was exiled,

I lived in a state of missing you

And to hug your mother "Aphrodite"

Ishtar

Ishtar

The  little ones all went away

All went away

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Hassan Mutlak (1961-1990) an Iraqi writer, painter and poet. He was born in Isdeera village at the north of Iraq .He holds a B.A. in education and psychology from the University of Mosul. He made many painting exibitions and was awarded many prizes in short story. He issued with a group of friends, (THE EDUCATOR) magazine. He worked as a teacher at the Teachers Institute in Kirkuk, and a principal for many high schools. His novel "Dabada", the peak of his literary works, was published in 1988.

Mutlak was hanged at the 18th. of July, 1990 for participating in a military coup against the dictator of Iraq. This had many intellectuals to call him "the Lorca of Iraq". His other literary works include "the Power of Laughter in Ura", "the Fictional Works", "the Book of Love: their shadows on earth" and "Masks: me, you and the homeland".

http://hassanmutlak.blogspot.com/

you can read the text in Arabic