Sunday, 18 October 2009
(published in Gloom Cupboard)
how not to be unidentified
(iraq 2007)
as old as the olive tree
reads the text on the body
fished out of the river
in the blue light before dawn
the line decipherable
body still a cypher
but now the word is out
in the beginning the word
the riddle, the clue
poetic self-effacing small tattoo
waits for a face and a name
to replace the figures
on the anonymous stiff blank sheet
as the man at the morgue
numbers the nameless
in dingy dimlit rooms
nothing is white anymore
even at the height of noon
dark corners untouched
by sunlight, streaming
through bulletholes in metal doors
through the eye of a needle
silver needle retracing
new blue greivances
not snakes, tigerheads or proud flags
no bold these colours don't run
but first name, last name, tribal name
diligently picked out
by a fine arts graduate, raw tattoist
tattoing over and over
a rollcall of death
a thin woman with corrugated skin
and her own blue-green tattoo on her chin
brought in her great grand-daughter
last of the line, moon faced,
red-chipped polish on bitten nails
plaited hair and red ribbons
orphaned and cast back
two generations
there's a waiting list:
the dull-eyed, drained
of imagination
prozac zombie nation
the bitter, counting off their dead
on accusing fingers
the rosary-clicking crowd
agrees to anything
on the one condition
of positive identification
but the younger generation
wears pragmaticism
like a raincoat
get a tattoo in case you die
make it look good in case you live
no guarantees,
the self-made tattoist says
he turns his palms up,
they are even as the scales
of justice, blue 18
and 81 filling in the lines
no promises, no refunds
they discuss what part of the body
is most likely
to survive unscathed
and the neighbours children wear
themselves to school everyday
name, D.O.B, address,
denomination, (digitally
altered to protect their identity)
fled
I.
fled the country
a running figure that just
gave the slip to the grasping shadow
that was the homeland
then shipped oars and anchored
temporarily somewhere
planning a pension
and an anthology of poetry
words that would scream
defiance and restore
everything, symbolically
II.
talking about the weather
is comforting now
when you've run away
from too many people who know too much
anonymous people
are a blessing
they have blank eyes
like teddybear buttons
and stitched smiles
and they say the most banal things
the mental voiceover goes away
snippets of overheard conversations substitute
and the anthology is left at a lonely sentence
about forgetting
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3 comments:
thank you, Tasnim, for sharing your poetry. On my upcoming winter course syllabus, I'm going to do a class on online writers, blogging poets, "minor" poets who are mostly self-published online....so, expect some more Canadian eyes on your site in the winter. Also, I need to find more Arab women poet bloggers writing in English. Hmmm. I'll have to do more sleuthing...
I will have to spend some more time on the longer poem, how not to be unidentified, because you have a number of ideas in it. I really like the 2nd one 'fled' because of its voicing of dis/placements, and especially, bringing to light the (sometime welcoming) banality of (Western) culture.....
sharing; find Khaf, Nye, Majaj and others here reciting their poems:
http://www.radiotahrir.org/poems.php
Thank you so much for the link. I'd come across it before but forgotten all about it, being the absent-minded person I am.
Glad you liked 'fled'! Though I feel like protesting on behalf of western culture ;P I was aiming for wannabe political poet tuning into howstheweather conversations (joke's on the poet) Um. How successful the attempt was, I guess thats another matter!
I hope all your sleuthing is productive.
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