1.
The lover and the Sufi, since creation: he is the angel and he the devil.
The wine’s elder and the tekiye’s sheikh: he is human, he is animal.
I took love’s secret to the ascetic. He nodded like a donkey.
I understood he was empty, his wide neck busy over bread.
Wine’s light differs from the electrical flame. One is wide thought’s lantern, one is the alley’s blessing.
When I embrace the glass chimney remembering only a neck.
I will break this neck when it reveals her neck, her necklace.
Flirtation’s wound and dagger’s wound: should I tell you their difference?
One is only waiting for treatment. The other is incurable.
The ringlet’s lover is never the man mad for her crown:
One arrives behind the ear while the other is the lip’s companion.
Do I dare compare a mountain of coral to your lip?
One is China’s fruit, the other is the sea’s fruitless tree.
The sun and beloved stood face to face, as if in a mirror. The beloved’s humiliated the sun’s.
They understood why the drunk eye and eyebrow fell onto each other.
The half-glance of one is the sign to murder the other.
Arrival and separation are poverty and fortune.
Arrival is trouble. Separation is simple.
It is love that leads Hamdi to philosophy’s field, to understanding.
Remove love and let me know if he retains any knowledge.
2.
Love reveals all secrets and yet keeps itself secret.
Love is full of the body and yet the body of soul. Each creature is a part of all parts of each creature.
Love is the source of each action in creation.
Existence is carried in the bright current of essence.
Love is the sea of God’s kind presence.
A person of insight is the candle lit by love’s hand.
Love is also the fool, whether menial or ruling.
Searching celebration, active as a bartender, Love is like wine, the limit of all gentility.
The heart shouldn’t be in less misery.
Love desires spectacle, that’s why there’s lightning.
To witness, the candle and flower gave their organs to this era.
Love is the fire set to both the nightingale’s heart and the moth.
What love? I have seen the fire of your ability.
Love has turned my heart into hell, not a kiln.
Ice is attracted to the lullaby of attraction’s power.
Love is the bright glory of lovers and colorful lovers.
The home of love is a place of pride, Hamdi.
Love is today’s problem and tomorrow’s ease.
3.
If I hadn’t fallen ill, afflicted by a callous lover, I would be numb as tar in the face of our daily woes.
The disciple and I, our calls tonight fell at one time—strange.
I whined for arrival and he labored to begin prayer.
I think he came to be the promise that kills me.
This stalker, this dog, that’s why he made this resolution.
Enough, dog, enough blood poured unjustly at this threshold.
The lover’s dwelling—was it ever transformed into Karbala’s fields?
You, stalker, my needs fall to you. Heal my illness.
Now, only the gentile writes amulets for sheikhs and mullahs.
When it comes to love, Hamdi, don’t taunt the heart.
It is the soul that burdened this neck, the day it said yes.
4.
The land is dear. Don’t say it is the earth’s dust.
It’s kohl dust that deepens the eyes of recognition.
Don’t say its stone thickened from water and dust.
Say the livers of Kurdish martyrs are fearless.
Wisdom is made. You call the Dijla’s waters blurred, lost,
But our pure source is a pure compass.
The long mountain bears the dams of Alexander.
The hills, like columns, rise into the ruling cosmos.
If the gardens don’t bloom and grass doesn’t gild,
It is their right—Kurds have been so long disrupted, in tragedy.
Hamdi knows the Turks and Iranians, foreigners,
Are enemies to Kurdish lands. If you see them, run.
5.
The wounded daffodil emerged like a lover
To meet the lover. Did it make remembrance for its country or the corner of the rose garden?
Let it be far from pain.
Oh, you, the bud that hasn't bloomed in the hearts of Kurds, will you
Emerge slowly like that?
Fields and markets receive flowers warmly.
The nightingale isn’t vigilant.
Oh, Creator of Jasmine, make grace sprout—enough difficulty.
Don’t you see anemones searching the mountain’s hem?
The headwaters? The streams?
Where is your balanced stature, you of the cedar’s height?
You, the rebel of the garden?
Without you, the tree trunks are crooked canes
Without clothing, without burdens.
You are a soul imprisoned in my psyche, oh, flower,
Like the branch’s caged heart.
The nightingale’s revolution and cry is listless.
I am sad and sorrowful.
Oh, idol, you prefer the love of the ignorant.
Do you remember? I used to say,
The lover is a beam, the moth dark night—
Is it a candle or a tree?
All lovers are without desire. All provinces are without light.
Cry at this story.
I wished a hundred times you would return to me, as you were last year
Just one time, this time.
See the effect of separation, the sorrow of distance.
No feeling is left.
Hamdi, in madness, became the city’s stadium.
He is in dire need.
6.
So they know how loyal a Kurd is to his nation
The Kurd must define his own origins.
They are ancient and many, but the eras have separated them.
Come, Kurds are a decent nation. They hold value.
They were snatched from Assur and Kabul, their first places.
Kurds spoke good Farsi and all the dialects of that time as well.
In their language, “birth” meant “brave man.”
In fact, in bravery, the Kurd is leader and sovereign.
They are the relatives of Zal, Rostam, Goderz, Gew and Bezhan.
The Kurds are clearly knights.
Adventure caused the ancient migration from Kabul.
History, generally, proves: Kurds are resilient.
They spend courage to buy self-worth.
The Kurd is most often life’s lion—at times, a black snake.
Even the lowest among Kurds eats excellence.
It doesn’t matter what the master says.
Kurds work.
None in this nation hopes to obey.
Why?
Examine each individual: he is a free Kurd.
In reality, a nation without education will be ignorant.
Fundamentally, the Kurd is ready for thought.
So, the era divides the nations of the universe it will accept.
The Kurd is jinxed, busy with misery and strategy.
See for yourself: the ignorant Kurd is like another nation’s wise man.
Even the man blind from birth, see, every Kurd is an eye.
A firm decision-maker, a dignified and dependable worker.
The Kurd discovers the unseen and keeps it secret.
Muslim clergy are bigoted, but the Kurd
Busies himself with repentance, devotion, and prayer.
The land of Kurdistan is the place of a perfect people.
Most men are paradigms of Kurdish swordsmanship.
If the others hadn’t forbidden it, this country
Would be independent, as Kurds still desire.
Even if they are drunk on drunkenness, pride’s wine, courage,
The Kurd is wise and sober, Hamdi, it is in his nature.
7.
Oh, land, the Turks and Persians long for you, Kurdistan.
The Kurdish nation takes pride in your honored address.
The pride satisfies you, morning and evening, months and days.
You wear it as a medal on your chest, a star on your shoulder.
This pride throws lightning, spills over in waves from jeweled fountains.
Is it water or the pure soul, the source of your animals?
Is it water or light the sparkles against the sun?
Wisdom’s people think it is my pearl, but it is yours.
Red and white flowers freckle the black earth as if
Your blush, talcum powder, and kohl have spilled out.
In love with your autumnal color, spring draws near.
Summer is hot with desire for your winter’s snow.
Why is Shahrazur a collection of the universe’s creation?
Visitors spread across the city market because you will visit.
I speak of your fruit and my pen fruits.
My poems are the nation’s, the heart’s, your ecstasy’s.
So I don’t step on you with a single foot, my thoughts
Will walk your lands or on my head, I’ll leave you.
The jewelry, the lovely golden belt of the Kurdish nation
Rustles and wraps around the stone waist of your mountains.
The rivers Sirwan and Zarb are cotton for your clothing.
The river Djla is the silk you cinch as your Botan’s belt.
The Kurd has raised his nose high as Kura Kazhaw Mountain,
As the Shamzeen of Baydin desires your Barzan.
The plains and mountains and sky of your lands reveal
The Kurds’ house: yard, wall, and rooftop.
The three-headed thorn has laid its short legs before Shirin’s castle.
Qandil Mountain is a long hand to light the lanterns of Wan Lake.
Piramagrun Mountain stole the kingdom’s crown for his high head.
If fogs fill the Damawand district, your Hawraman region is shamed.
The poems’ cursive lines, the high noses of the mountains,
All are ferociously for independence, ready at your command.
If Hamdi blames you, every once in a while, he isn’t wrong.
Don’t harbor thieves, don’t let them tell you they are your beloved.
