with our eyes wide open

Poems of the new American century- Iraqi contribution:

Diverse in ethnicity , experience, and writing style, the poets of this anthology by Douglas Valentine, are united by a common interest in promoting peace, justice and human welfare. Their poems tell of the struggle for for dignity from many parts of the world including Iraq.Joined by global concern for humanity, they represent poetic consciousness which is helping to define and shape the imagination and language of the 21st century. 

Douglas Valentine 
Editor of ( with our eyes wide open), author of four historical non-fiction books, author of one novel, TDY,and one book of poems ( A crow's dream)

Sabah Mohsen Jasim

Born in Iraq in 1951, received a B.A. Degree in English literature in Baghdad in 1975, a member of The Iraqi Union Writers and Iraqi Journalist Union.  A participant in the San Francisco International Poetry Festival, July, 2007, had two books published in Serbia: Premonitions Far of Memory (poems) and That Wild Flower (short stories). His translation to "Poetry as Insurgent Art" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti – into Arabic - will shortly be published in Iraq.He contributed poems to Revolutionary Poets Brigade,1st & 2nd Anthology published in California, in 2010 and in San Francisco, USA, 2013.

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 this is his contribution to the anthology With our eyes wide open;




Inanna* Moaning

Grandma, you’re still young!

Your braids have been released over the Tigris and Euphrates

Like twin fishes, rejoicing,

While I come out just to watch with surprise.

Those, the promised ones, used to call me ‘Gypsy,’

And while they were stealing everything I had,

They tied my legs & hands

They blindfolded my eyes

And muzzled my mouth,

And now it’s hard for me to act,

Grandma,

My whole body convulses,

I am helpless,

No more alive than Lamassu.*

They poured volcanoes of hot water on me,

They uprooted my throat with a harsh flint stone

For fear of me shouting:

“Those American missiles

Will target your heart!”

That which is knocking,

Is not the sound of moon kisses, impressed on a lake,

Or the approaching night,

Nor  a worshiper’s hymns.

What’s left within me would listen:

(Freedom is what a man must exercise!)

While the knocker,

The thing that is coming,

The rejecting, protesting of truth throbbing,

Is  but my heart.

So bless me, Grandma,

And heal my deep wounds

Those drowned deep with my insurgent tearing.  

All that’s left is

Their desire for the barbecue,

While my heart is still throbbing with love,

A heart I will never abandon,

That will never give up singing!

Just as I promised, I dedicate this

Song  to you, Inanna.

Stop wailing now, it hurts my wound

And quickens my heart,

My heart, a promising seed:

None would know except you, Grandma,

Wherefrom it had got its glowing color,

Of Babylon sun, of red anemones

And lightning sky, together.

                      

* Inanna is a prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia.  Her name means Queen of Heaven.

* Lamassu is a Babylonian statue of a bull with a human head and five legs with huge eagle wings.

Note

Sabah Mohsen Jasim is an Iraqi.  He wrote “Inanna Moaning” for this anthology.