1.
The tongue-tied girl, her life is a role
In a drama, a movie.
When she is born, there is no celebration.
They say, “Ay, it’s a girl, what’s the use?”
No one will bring her a gift.
No one will ever speak sweetly about her.
Old men and women surround her mother,
Each reassure her,
“Don’t be sad. God is generous.
You will have a son, too. Be grateful.
For house work, for errands,
This one can take the place of a servant.
So she’s ill for a hundred years—she doesn’t need medicine.
Happiness? Just slap her.
She can’t eat until all the family
Leaves the table.
If she loses her appetite,
If, after eating, she must wash the dishes,
If she is angry, no one will know,
She can cry hungrily until she dries up.”
She won’t be a carpenter, a merchant,
A farrier, an apothecary.
If she peeks her head out from the courtyard,
Her mother will screech at her,
“You, shameless ass.”
This tongue-tied girl, until she turns fifteen,
Is captured, imprisoned in the house.
When she grows up, she can come and go.
Callously, they marry the girl off
To the master’s, the tailor’s, the butcher’s boy.
They propose to her, good people, bad people,
A half-efendi, a widower haji,
The offspring of the rich, the old, the past prime.
Her mother and father start to scheme.
They don’t care about beauty or age.
They look only to see if he has money.
If he does, it doesn’t matter if he is black or gray.
The tongue-tied girl is not aware.
She does not know what her mother and father whisper about.
Her father responds,
“The Haji is good.
He has money and a pure heart.
Who cares that he has no teeth left?
That age has taken his beauty?
His Lira and Majid are odd and even.
He has gathered as much as we desire.”
When the girl knows they will marry her off
To the Haji and the abandoned world,
Her tears rush, rush from her eyes
And she curls around herself like a wounded snake.
She says,
“Ay, beauty, ay, bright world,
Ay, mother and father, ay, friend, ay enemy,
Ay, older girls, ay, beloved husbands,
Ay, those who are deprived, those of cold breath,
Why guard animals
When you don’t ask about how girls live?
If they are not human, they are animal.
Why must we face the world without sympathy?
Go with God.
Free my neck.
I will begin walking toward the city of death.”
2.
Oh, land, some good news to end your strife: this is your era.
The blood of your old victims paints your doorways.
Listen to anyone, they all speak of your youths.
Oh, land, the Turks and Persians long for you, Kurdistan.
The Kurdish nation takes pride in your honored address.
Oh, land, don’t let your eyes fear gas and explosion.
The pen has grown and for you it shouts and calls.
Let the pessimist choke on the fragrant smoke of wild rue.
Pride satisfies you, morning and evening, months and days.
You wear it as a medal on your chest, a star on your shoulder.
How could a pen describe you, era?
How could it pronounce one hundredth of what you are?
Oh nature, your work in Kurdistan is well done.
This pride throws lightning, spills over in waves from jeweled fountains.
Is it water or the pure soul, the source of your animals?
When the doors of your gardens open,
Your waterfalls will pour down the mountain faces.
Your lovers’ wounded liver will once again complain.
Is it water or light the sparkles against the sun?
Wisdom’s people think it is my pearl, but it is yours.
Hundreds of cities, Lebanon and Berlin, will shoulder your fate.
They will sacrifice thousands of their gems for a few of yours.
In tense times, your mountains will reveal their fortresses.
Red and white flowers will freckle the black earth as if
Your blush, talcum powder, and kohl have spilled out.
Powerful hands hold provision they made for the poor.
Every direction I face is gardens and grasslands.
Your mountains are your deserts, your deserts, mountains.
In love with your autumnal color, spring draws near.
Summer is hot with desire for your winter’s snow.
Oh, nation, truth’s light shines in you, like Mount Sinai
You have a thousand Moses, each a river of light.
Your harvest fills the universe, far and wide.
Why is Shahrazur a collection of the universe’s creation?
Visitors spread across the city market because you will visit.
If I imagine you, sorrow surges from my heart.
If I call your name, my mouth will flow with sweet nectar.
If I look across your plains, they heal the wounded liver.
I speak of your fruit and my pen fruits.
My poems are the nation’s, the heart’s, your ecstasy’s.
Baled wheat and barley in burlap is silver and gold.
You are this world’s heaven, no embroidery, no lie.
The ice cold cup of doh beats beer and whiskey.
The jewelry, the lovely golden belt of the Kurdish nation
Rustles and wraps around the stone waist of your mountains.
You mountains are head to toe red with flowering pomegranate.
Your valleys and plains and woods run with pure water.
The only work of nightingales like me is to moan for the rose.
The plains and mountains and sky of your lands reveal
The Kurds’ house: yard, wall, and rooftop.
I yearn for doubt to leave the heart.
My hot-blooded youths, know.
Don’t reach without thinking.
Look at your land, come away, notice its flowers.
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.
Look at Azmar and Goizha Mountain, how they perform.
Our local gardens and flowers break Lebanon’s back.
Yellow trees won’t yellow until they reach the sky.
Piramagrun Mountain stole the kingdom’s crown for his high head.
If fogs fill the Damawand district, your Hawraman region is shamed.
Kurds, free from sorrow rise to your feet.
Face joy and mind.
Your seedling has grown and fruited like the orchard’s trees.
Don’t sit with your hands on your knees, sighing heavily.
The poems’ cursive lines, the high noses of the mountains,
All are ferociously for independence, ready at your command.
You can’t grasp the meaning of Hamdi’s mystery, oh, Qana’.
This mystery faces the musician who worships the excessive.
Let the wind of existence uproot his ear.
Until he’s startled, he’s useless.
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.
3.
Three things in today’s world have no heir and yet have status:
Poets first, scholars second, and the home of Kurds.
Three things in this era, that have no fame and name:
The faults of the rich, the poems of Qana’, and the deaths of the poor.
Like Khanaqa’s rice, these are a noun without body, brother:
First humanity, second generosity, third the faith of a promise or decision.
Three illnesses have come to this world without cure or solution:
Arrogance first, bribes second, third faith in money and the Dinar.
Three precious belongings have today become completely worthless:
First poems, second truth, third respect for land and home.
Disloyalty is required by these three clans of this era:
Lovers first, chairs second, third the flower bud of spring.
Three people never realize their intentions and desires:
Qana’ first, the hungry second, the mad nightingale third.
4.
My brother, come and watch the actions and behavior of Kurds.
Then, sink your head into mud seeing the sorrowful hearts of Kurds.
Why doesn’t the heart moan and sigh?
Why don’t the eyes cry blood?
Why doesn’t the heart fry, ill with the incurable heat of Kurds?
My brother, you sit on a throne.
What’s a Kurd?
What’s the homeland?
You live well with joy.
Don’t look back at the wound of Kurds.
Scented oil for your head, luxury soap, red and white shoes:
That’s enough.
Why plan for the hungry, idle Kurds?
I grab your hem with my hand, I beg you:
Paint your wall well.
Don’t worry that children will get cold in the night under the wall of a Kurd.
If you have no garden, how will you save society?
Whiskey sustains you.
It’s also good to rescue Kurds.
You left nothing unsaid.
You broke a hundred Gandhi’s.
Well done, you.
God bless you, the gem-encrusted blade of Kurds.
Bundle your honor into a swing.
Distract yourself.
Never give ear to the moans and sobs of wounded Kurds.
It’s almost ‘Eid.
Adorn your family head to toe.
Let them break:
the necks of porters, laborers and farmers of Kurds.
Come on, call.
Check if you’ll get your award.
God does you good while they all die:
the conscious Kurds.
Qani’, you almost decided to quit writing, but
This makes you write, the imperfect work of Kurds.
5.
My life’s last home is this prison’s corner.
These handcuffs cure the wounded hearts of the insane.
I have waited so long for the jangling of chains—
Look at this chain—it is as regal as Zewar.
Freedom is my bride,
my blood will henna my hands and feet.
The links of the shackles around my feet are anklets.
The enemy thinks imprisonment will strike me dumb, but
Tell him:
this prison’s corner is my education.
In prison, my thoughts of freedom expand.
He hoped prison would—but I throw mud at his head.
Capturing, beating, and killing are all freedom’s agents.
The bomb, gun, and handcuff are my fairy tales.
I wait for a revolution that saves the world.
I want a nation with that purpose,
with lion-like action.
I rebel through writing and thought.
Revolution is attack, full of roaring Kurds.
If I don’t live free, death is a gift for my body.
Serving and bowing is coward’s work.
I am Qani’ today in prison.
I live freely.
Damn those who serve the foreigners.
6.
Many thanks:
I am deprived of knowledge.
Congratulate me:
I teach donkeys.
A hundred hurrays:
I am far from philosophy and suffering.
I faced the flood of knowledge but escaped its waters.
I sailed the ship of ignorance and crossed that sea.
I studied for many eras only to become a cautionary tale.
I have no mind or consciousness:
I had gave them to the nation.
For the shallow, today we feast.
Welcome, all.
Gather.
Many thanks, hurray,
I escaped knowledge and art.
They will not capture me again.
I will dance with joy.
Never, ever imagine a life of freedom.
Spit on knowledge and news.
Come, play the zurna.
Arrive with a thbt and give the occasional donkey kick.
Even though I have said,
‘Understand and grow,’
Never believe me.
I was a dog and I barked.
How good it is for man to be an ass:
acting the ass is being a man.
Look at the caravan of donkeys,
how it miscarries its foal.
Only ignorance would put pottery shards before gems.
Education is insanity.
Only ignorance makes man succeed.
If I speak knowledge’s name,
know that I am shallow.
My bad name rings out, brayed among the Kurdish tribes,
Because I used my life’s fortune to buy the homeland’s mind,
Because I fought until I cut the curtain of ignorance,
I chased justice so hard,
I burned my own bread.
My name is reduced, disgraced, come to a bad end.
Hold your tongue, please, from those words that are right—
It’s known:
the right is bitter and rough for the inferior.
Scholars’ sorrowful eyes shed blood and pop right out.
It’s a good thing I knew:
the wise man is fated to exile,
Captivity, or abuse.
Yesterday, I tore apart every book I had.
I was a child:
for the nation, I threw myself into the whirlpool of risks.
I just now realized that philosophy, poems and art aren’t worth a penny.
Without taking a breath, I wore the donkey’s hide.
A scholar, a wise mind, knows he cannot get away with it.
I wore the fool’s clothes and escaped from of prison
I vow to never wear the scholar’s ring.
My knowledge’s wings broke and won’t whoosh overhead.
I will become a dog, silent at my front door,
no barking.
I vow to be an ass.
If they load me with walnuts, almonds, many or
Few, I won’t make a sound.
Like a thoughtless man, I will live for myself
7.
Again, all over again, I am home-wrecked.
Dismal and dreary, I drift.
Again, as earlier, I mourn and weep.
Sorrow and complaint and suffering afflict me.
Again, this chaotic era
Came and went, causing the heart pain.
Again, the ulcers crack within the psyche,
Pus overflows, my liver full of ache.
The universe.
Each time, it plays the tyrant—
An owl trying to sing.
The universe.
Each act is failure.
It parts lovers—a cheerless heart.
The universe works poorly between hearts.
The universe is October to flower gardens.
The universe, each day, is man’s enemy.
It is lethal poison for he who owns a name:
Haji Tofiq Beg, known as “Piramerd,”
The wise teacher of Kurds, north and south.
Which elder?
The elder who spent his years
In awareness, in sacrifice.
Which elder?
The elder who with Life, Life
Filled Kurdistan with knowledge.
Which elder?
The elder who worked
In Kurdish writing, breaking new road.
Which elder?
The elder who turned the ancestor’s Proverbs into teachers for relatives and strangers.
He hurried toward the lonely friend.
He bid goodbye to his beloved gatherings.
That’s when I knew the ill fate of Kurds,
The bad luck of the tribes of Kurdish language.
The universe lined up its poets
One after the other in this finite world.
Zewar, he aimed an arrow at my wounds.
And Bekas, he heaped mud on my shoulders.
Dldar of Koye, who emboldened me in my youth,
Drew a curtain, darkness, over my eyes.
Where is Haji Qadir?
Where is Badirkhan?
Where are the conquerors, the blazing Babans?
Where is Shamzin’s Swara?
Where is the Zandi hero?
Where are the Ardalans, the lion’s roar?
Where is Dr. Fuad, the honorable lion?
Where is Amin Zaki, the young historian?
Where is Sheikh Maroof, who owned wings?
One, wise in the visible, one wise in reality.
Where is Nali?
Nari?
Kurdi?
Mawlawi?
Where is the Mullah of the Masnavi, of rhyming couplets?
Where is the Mullah of love in my Besaran?
Where is Hamdi, grandchild of he who owns money?
It is not as if this is Kurdistan’s first time
To lose a poet, but!
Piramerd, the harm is heavy:
He is the uncle all in the poet’s rank.
The beautiful old heart, the beautiful pen has left me.
He who consumed grief for the ranks of the lonely has left me.
What remained after Amin Zaki’s death has left me.
The last of poetry has left me.
The noble fire of the hospitable has left me.
The faithful of my nation and my homeland has left me.
Pen, it is your turn.
Come.
Hurry.
Write the history of the Kurd’s teacher.
The pen, heroically, appeared.
It poured itself out on the face of the paper, the gemstone.
With the alphabet’s letters, it began to speak,
“The Kurd’s teacher and the owner of life has left me.”
