Sherko Bekas' diwan

 1. 

Sherko Bekas was in the habit of reciting his own poetry, and this particular poem survives in a recording of his own voice.

(Answer)

After Halabja suffocated

I wrote a long complaint to God

In front of everyone

I read it to a tree 

The tree wept. 

On one side, a bird, a postman,

said, "Ok, who will deliver it? 

if you're looking to me I can't reach God's throne." 

Late that night my angelic poem, dressed for mourning, said, 

"Don't worry, I will take it to the heights of the atmosphere.

But I can't promise He will receive the letter Himself.

You know the Great God 

Who can see Him?" 

I said, "Thank you. Fly." 

My angelic inspiration flew

with my complaint. 

The next day, it was returned. 

God's fourth secretary down, 

by the name of Obaid, at the bottom

of the very same complaint, 

had written to me in Arabic: 

"Idiot, make it Arabic. 

No one here knows Kurdish. 

No one will take that to God."

2. 

(Women)

You are not one day 

but the whole year!

You are not 

one word, one book, one lamp, one painting or one drawing 

If you are absent for one minute,

the clock's heart will stop,

the house will go blind,

the infant grass will die,

the street will weep,

the birds will mourn,

the poem itself will collapse.

You alone are wind and rain

The boiling blood of summer, 

the dark hair of autumn evenings,

a flake of love's snow.

If not you,

who?

You are life...

Translation source and credits