Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Hari Kumar
43 years old
He has has lived in Baghdad for many years.
An old Iraqi in a new classroom
At the far end of Rashid street, there once stood a cafe, brightly lit as all Baghdadi cafes, where thick veined men in tweed jackets would sit around marbletop tables shuffling dominoes. Some with arms and eyes unwound would smoke and sip bitter qahwwa or sweetened chai from tiny gold-rimmed glass cups, while losing themselves in the wrenching lilt of Um Khaltoum shaking love out of her breast; Um Khaltoum of the long trembling handkerchief clenched white in her hands; Um Khaltoum, legend of the Nile.
Today Um Khaltoum is dead and forgotten. The cafe is a mound of rubble; product of the shock that shocked and the awe that awed men to ghosts and dominoes to dust. But I know that in this dust I shall find, like diamonds hard and glittering, an American freedom that also comes packed and labeled in the coffins of my sons. But I must not mourn my sons as I must mourn the Marine who shot them and then fell to a cowardly RPG, for I must learn the new Algebra that tells me: "one noble Marine equals a hundred Eye-raqis". And I must understand that the great roads of Freedom that shall be built on these coffins of my wretched sons are to teach my grandsons the John Wayne swagger, when they walk into the innocent sunsets of the future. I must learn new truths that teach me Saddam, after all, does not own Allah; it is George Bush who does (he owns Jesus too, but keeps Him in a separate cage). I must learn that our oil is purer than our blood and above all, our oil is not our oil. That our land, this land that cradled Man, mothered the great Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, is now a whore. The Whore of Babylon. The Whore of the New con men. The Whore of the oil men who will sink their thick shafts deep into her and suck her black blood in exchange for such precious things as hamburgers and toilet paper. I must learn to see the goodness in this act of incessant sodomy by this Great Keeper of my God on this dirty Whore to cleanse her to a star-spangled goodness and broadcast this great pornography to the penisless men of the world. And I must be awed by the magnanimity of this Great Keeper, in his willingness to share the holes of this Whore with his pet poodles to leave their weak piss-marks on. And I must learn to cherish the glorious pearls that drop from the mouths of Bush, Blair and Beelzebub. And I must learn to revel in their excrement, for they, these man-gods, have my Allah on a leash. I have much to learn,
And before that,
I have much to unlearn.
Shoof Maama!
"Maama, Maama, Ta'al hina Look that cloud, big n' pink Rising, growing, ya Saddam! From beth-mehfouz or beth-mina.
Maama, Maama lu'esh khaaf? My dear maama, why afraid? Why you pull me under table? Don't cry, maama, I make you laugh.
Maama, Maama, why close ears? Why shut eyes? Why bite pencil? You look so funny! ha ha ha! But maama, maama, no more tears.
Maama, maama what you saying? I cannot hear; you know I am deaf, Sh'ithreed maama? sh'ithgul maama? Maama, maama why you praying?
Maama, maama I go my room. I cannot stay with you like this, Too stuffy here, kullish haar! I want to go to my-" BOOM!
