The Front Door of War

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By Zhawen Shali

 

The girls of my village

Were sizzling the sunflower seeds

Because of the disappearance of the sun

They were taking empty pots to the spring water

And narrating the decisiveness of water to the water

And used to get back with a handful of shy kisses

They pass the entire spring and under their beds with it

Without any song.

 

The girls in my village used to plot their long hair

Have pink dreams

About the unknown day of their weddings

They used to walk the foot walks towards the water springs

And

They used to bombard the village by dreams

By their eternal imaginations

O’ the wounds of the elegant girls of my village.

 

In wars

Things are against things

Ingredients are against Ingredients

Since soil was placing the

Bodies of Anfal deep down into the wholes

The wind was taking away pieces of clothes

Up deep into the sky

When the war started

Our village’s women covered themselves with black

They squeezed their black clothes

And their black fates together

This was a very first source of a grape juice

 

Wars have taken away

The girl’s virginity

It prolonged the distance between the wound

And the body

It brought the sentences of immigration and eeriness together

It ripped the white colour of joy worshipers

 

When the war started

My father has hidden all the books in a hole

After the war

He, until the end of time

Lie down next to his books.

 

In a war

The front of every house were

Washed with blood,

Now is washed with fog

 

When we came back from the war

We all have chanted freedom

In one voice,

Later

A piece after piece

We have cut ourselves

Over the holiness of the war

 

The war works gracefully

It does not exclude any of us

It does not upset anyone

It sprinkles its curse

From everybody’s sky.

 

In the mornings

It rises before the sun

It twists the door handles

Of all doors and windows

It leaves its victims

In the alleys and streets

Before the arrival of the cleaners

It accomplishes its work in the dark

Just like a bat.

 

Women and war

Look like a memory of snow and charcoal

It looks like a memory of uncoloured lips and rust

 

War is taking away the sunshine

And leaves behind long nights

It turns language off

And leaves no meaning for definition.

 

 

 

Note:

This poem is a part of wide poetic project specialised in war and its tragedies on human beings, at the same time is a special part to return to peace and coexistence.
Translated by Abbas Boskani