tr by Solara Sabah
I rest my head on the rock of oblivion.
Like a chorus, I echo the saddest song, as follows:
I don’t care if I die poor
or poorer than the poorest people of the world.
My two children are eating apples
and chewing on pomegranate seeds.
This is most important!
I don’t care if I die.
Then I will wake up, walking alone in my funeral
I don’t care if never wake up.
My two children are whispering to each other
with joy and happiness
as if they were two loves.
This is most important!
Sargon Boulos had passed away in Berlin alone
as he was always alone;
reeled in to the brink of death as if he was a drunken Angel.
He was sick.
As a forgotten Prince,
Kamal Sabti died in a sofa in his home in Holland.
Agree! Ali had passed away on the sidewalk
as if he was formed to be the crown of all the homeless.
Mahmoud al-Braikan was killed with the knife of a thief.
He was a lighthouse, guiding pirates
to his penniless pockets.
Then why should I care if I die in a bar, ballroom,
cabaret or in the arms of a whore in a brothel?
My two children are eating French Frieds with mayonnaise.
This is most important!
I don’t care if I die by drowning, burning, strangulation,
slaughter or by committing suicide with carbon monoxide,
like my sister Sylvia Plath.
I don’t care if I am put to death on my birthday,
like my brother Dilshad Meriwani,
the strange Angel of Kurdistan.
I don’t care if I die hungry, imprisoned or under the wheels
of a reckless train, like my spiritual twin Attila Joszef.
I don’t care if I am murdered in the hands of a mob,
like Lorca, or hanged like Hasan Murlak,
“Dabada” of Baghdad.
More importantly, my two children are okay!
And I write simple farewell love poems,
inspired by the flirtation of the waitresses
and the beautiful young girls, passing in front of the cafe.
My two children are playing.
My daughter is combing her Barbie’s hair,
and my son is riding his tiny motorbike.
This is most important!
I don’t care if I am stabbed with a treacherous knife
or given a dose of venom, like my uncle Socrates.
I don’t care if my death occurs in Athens, Berlin Beirut,
Damascus, London, Madrid or beautiful Washington~
Cities are similar.
Death is a wandering dog, prowling along the skylines.
My children are rolling a ball-like planet,
and they seem fascinated by it.
This is most important!
I don’t care if I die homeless in exile, achy, sad or drunk
or stabbed by friends’ tusks, like most poets.
It is important that in this moment
I’m listening to Maria Callas.
Deep down, my inner self is soaked
in her melodious voice!
And my two children are sleeping innocently, it’s amazing.
This is most important!
I don’t care if I stutter with a drool
or sail through the madness swirl,
like my companion Cioran,
roaming the night due to insomnia,
putting my fate in the hands of coldness or delirium.
My two children are smiling in their sleep,
dreaming perhaps about birds or butterflies.
This is most important!
I don’t care if I live or die!
It makes no difference!
Death is the departure of the soul.
I lost my soul a long time ago
in the forests of oblivion.
Why should I care now.
I don’t care!

Hussein Habasch is a poet from Afrin, Kurdistan. He current lives in Boon German7. His poems have been translated into English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Turkish, Persian, Albanian, Uzbek, Russian, Italian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Polish and Romanian. This poem was published in his selected poems A Rose for the Heart of Life (inner Child Press 2021)