نحن العراقیین We are the Iraqis

نحن العراقیین

الجنود الامیركان في الھلیكوبتر یرمون المناشیر بسواعد موشومة على نسائنا
النائمات فوق السطوح
نحن العراقیین
ً على الفطور تضع أمھاتنا لنا الطائفیة في الصحون، نأكل منھا حتى نبلغ
یومیا
أفواھنا
نحن العراقیین
نصنع أبواب بیوتنا من الحدید لنصدأ خلفھا
نحن العراقیین
نطلق النار عندما یموت أحدنا حتى نقتل الآخر
نحن العراقیین
ُعارك الدیكة ونمسح دماءنا
ن
نحن العراقیین
تح ّك الكلاب العسكریة في نقاط التفتیش أنوفھا بعیوننا
نحن العراقیین
نزرع المقابر أمام البیوت
نحن العراقیین
نھرول حول شاحنة المساعدات الغذائیة مثل مسبحة مقطوعة في مجلس عزاء
نحن العراقیین
التابوت بأطرافھ القصیرة ُیو ّحد أكتافنا
نحن العراقیین
ً
الأصابع نفسھا التي جمعنا بھا الخراطیش صغارا
الآن نحسب بھا القتلى
نحن العراقیین
ُن ّزل الرؤوس الجافة عن أسیجة الحدائق
لا ن
نحن العراقیین
بالصابون نفسھ نغسل الأیدي للطعام
وبالصابون نفسھ نغسل الأیدي من الدم
نحن العراقیین
نقلع سنواتنا ُ المسّوسة ك ّل یوم
ونصط ّف في مقبرة جماعیة
نحن العراقیین
في الصیف تحت الصّبات الكونكریتیة ننتظر الباصات كأحذ ٍیة مغسولة
نحن العراقیین
نتوسد الأسلحة ونتغطى بعجین العبوات
نحن العراقیین
دودة نائمة في تفاحة العالم!!
 

We are the Iraqis

The American soldiers in the helicopter throw leaflets with inked arms onto our sleeping women on the rooftops
 
We are the Iraqis
 
Daily at breakfast our mothers dish up sectarianism, we chew it until we consume our mouths
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We make iron doors for our houses so we rust behind them
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We fire when one of us dies until we kill the other
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We fight with the roosters and wipe away our blood
 
We are the Iraqis
 
At the checkpoints military dogs rub their noses against our eyes
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We plant graves in front of houses
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We tumble around the food-aid truck like a string of prayer-beads snapped at a wake
 
We are the Iraqis
 
The little coffin unites our shoulders
 
We are the Iraqis
 
The same fingers that we collected shot-casings with as children
 
now count the dead
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We don’t bring down the dried heads from park railings
 
We are the Iraqis
 
With this soap we wash our hands to eat
 
and with this same soap we wash our hands of blood
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We uproot our rotten years every day
 
stacked in rows in a mass grave
 
We are the Iraqis
 
In the summer we wait for buses under cast concrete like washed shoes
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We use weapons as pillows and blanket ourselves in Semtex
 
We are the Iraqis
 
A sleeping worm in the apple of the world
 

We are the Iraqis

The American soldiers in the helicopter throw leaflets with tattooed arms over our women sleeping on the rooftops
 
We are the Iraqis
 
Daily at breakfast our mothers put sectarianism in our plates, we eat it until we reach our mouths 
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We make the doors of our houses from iron so we can rust behind them
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We shoot when one of us dies so as to kill the other
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We battle with the rooster and wipe off our blood
 
We are the Iraqis
 
The military dogs scratch their noses in our eyes at the checkpoints
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We plant graves in front of our houses
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We scurry around the food aid truck like prayer beads cut at a wake
 
We are the Iraqis
 
The coffin with its small sides unites our shoulders
 
We are the Iraqis
 
The same fingers that we gathered shells with as children
we now use to count the dead
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We don’t take the dried heads down from the garden fences
 
We are the Iraqis
 
With the same soap we wash our hands to eat
and with the same soap we wash the blood off our hands
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We pull out our rotten years every day
and queue up at a mass grave
 
We are the Iraqis
 
In the summer under the concrete casts we wait for the buses like washed shoes
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We use weapons as a pillow and cover ourselves in the bomb dough
 
We are the Iraqis
 
A sleeping worm in the apple of the world!!
 

-Kadhem Khanjar is part of a performance collective, ‘The Culture Militia’, and it was helpful to be told this by our bridge translator Alice Guthrie at the start of the workshop – read aloud it has an incredible cumulative effect and made me think of the Beat poets (and Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ in particular) as a depiction of a generation. Although performance poetry can often seem simplistic though – designed to be understood on a single hearing – the more time we spent on this poem the more complexities it revealed.

In the first line, for example, the inked arms clearly belong to the American soldiers, and we learnt that tattoos would be very alien to Iraqi culture and a symbol of otherness. But the leaflets are also tattooed in a way – inked with taboo markings – and carry down the soldier’s arms so that they touch (or even hit) the sleeping women, violating what should be a safe space. In other lines we tried to maintain an ambiguity too. One of our workshop members told us that cock-fighting is still practised in Iraq, and the line ‘we fight with the roosters and wipe away our blood’ seems to refer to this. But are they fighting via the roosters, or actually battling the cocks themselves? We wanted to maintain the possibility of both readings. (Is the rooster sectarianism? The US?)

There were also long discussions about vocabulary, particularly that relating to war. Alice’s original bridge translation had children collecting ‘shells’, but she explained these were cartridges, not seashells. Even ‘cartridges’ though, might evoke a more innocent image to an English reader – that of ink cartridges. In the end we settled on ‘shot-casings’. We also swapped ‘bomb-dough’ – which created a mixed metaphor – for the brand name ‘Semtex.’

Similar debates raged around whether dog’s noses could scratch, the right verb for the action of snapped prayer-beads, whether the united shoulders were carrying a coffin and in what way people waiting at bus stops are like ‘washed shoes’. Although we (just) got through the poem in time, it feels like we could have easily spent another two hours discussing this rich portrait of a people and a country.

Clare Pollard, Poet-facilitator

Original Poem by

Kadhem Khanjar

Translated by

Alice Guthrie with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Arabic

Country

Iraq