Poems of Hussein Habasch

 
The Difference Between You and Me
 
The difference between you and me
Is that you sit cross-legged,
Leisurely savoring your glass of wine
While I wrap myself around myself
As I gulp from the glass of pain at the hospital.
You post the photo of your ninety something mother on
Facebook, still in her prime.
And I remember the complexions of my seventy something
Mother with all her wrinkles.
You see her every day and place a peck on her cheeks,
Whereas I have seen her only twice in twenty-two years.
I kiss her photo every day in longing.
God bless our mothers!
You follow all football matches.
You laugh, comment, cheer and support this team
Against that one
While I follow all the agonies of my people in Afrin.
I weep, despond, curse and grieve
For what has befallen them.
Your sister has a splendid house in the city center
Whilst my two sisters are vagrants, homeless
And vagabonds,
A family from Ghouta occupied the house of one,
And a family from Qalamun occupied the house
Of the other.
You sit with your only brother
And debate how to split your father's vast legacy
While I worry about the affairs of my brothers, exiled and
Fleeing, scattered around the globe.
I have no means to reunite them and to bring them
To safety.
Your country is Germany.
My country is Kurdistan.
Two worlds apart...
Germany is flourishing and growing
At each moment and every minute
While Kurdistan is slaughtered and murdered
At each moment and every second.
Your country is exporting Leopard tanks to kill what breath
Was left in the lungs of my country!
And my compatriots who miraculously survived
The killing machine
Are applying in scores for asylum in your country.
You were born with a golden spoon in your mouth,
And I was born with a poisonous challis in my mouth.
This is only a drop of an ocean of differences
Between you and me.
I shall not go on unfolding the pain that adjoined me
As a twin since birth.
Despite the differences you see between us,
I fully understand why you celebrate life.
I never understand why I despair over it!
 
 
A Kurd Would Love His Stubbornness!
 
I love these rugged mountains
and these slender rivers
with wobbly knees pouring into their charnel house.
I love these stones that defy sunrays
in the midsummer heat
and the frosty cold in midwinter chills.
I love this soil that resembles my body
and this land that foremost means the heart.
I love this dust, a coal for my eyes it is,
and this air, a balm for my lungs it is.
I love this skimpy terebinth
and the fragrant hawthorn.
I love cacti and its thorns,
olives and its yearnings.
I love this thin reed that serenades all the time
on the river bank,
this dark swamp where frogs continuously croak.
I love the daisy flower that resembles the whiteness
of my heart,
and these tulips that fraternize with my blood.
I love these mud houses
and these tents, fluttering on the outskirts of
forgotten villages.
I love this generous vine, the bequeather of grapes
and wine.
I love these yellow grain spikes, the bequeather of food
and bread.
I love these swaggering kite birds,
and these cicadas, continuously singing.
I love my land
from top to bottom
and from bottom to top,
just as a Kurd would love his stubbornness!
 
 
The Most Beautiful Side
 
Go neither to this side nor to that
Just stay where you are
Contemplate deeply
You will realize that all sides
Are almost enclosed
The most beautiful one
Is the side of your soul.
 
 
By the Rhine River
 
He has nothing to say.
Hands in pockets,
Heart on his chest.
No, he left his heart on purpose in the heart of
A crazy woman.
She kept writing about her little Sisyphus
And about the stones with their bright colors
That God granted.
He has nothing to say, especially now.
He walks alone, all by himself
On rough roads,
Shirtless,
Bareheaded,
With wounded tongue.
He whistles with a wounded tone
And his eyes are on the careless cloud that sways
Over the Rhine!
He walks mindlessly.
No thoughts,
No exhaustion.
He asks all the beings he encounters on his way,
On the paths where he may retrieve his heart
From the heart of that crazy woman.
She was putting the stones on top of each other
And making high towers.
Then she would break them down
With a slight gasp from her little finger
So that the smile would appear
On the face of her little Sisyphus
With whom children refuse to play!
His heart grows in her heart!
The same way the heart of her Sisyphus is growing
In the heart of the hidden stone in his pocket.
Mystified, he is wondering,
What does she have to do with it?
What does her heart have to do with it?
 
 
Translated by Azad Akkash
 
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Hussein Habasch
KURDISTAN
 
Hussein Habasch is a poet from Afrin, Kurdistan, born in 1970. He currently lives in Bonn, Germany. His poems have been translated into English, German, Spanish, French, Persian, Uzbek, Albanian, Russian, Romanian, Italian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovenian, Lithuanian, Vietnamese, Nepali, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tajik, Bengali, Turkish, Berber (Amazigh), Bosnian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Chinese, Greek, Mandarin (the language of Taiwan) and Tzotzil (the language of the Mayan peoples of Mexico), Dutch. His poetry has been published in more than 200 International Poetry Anthologies and his books include: Drowning in Roses, Fugitives across Evros River, Higher than Desire and more Delicious than the Gazelle's Flank, Delusions to Salim Barakat, A Flying Angel, No pasarán (in Spanish), Copaci Cu Chef (in Romanian), Dos Árboles and Tiempos de Guerra (in Spanish), Fever of Quince (in Kurdish), Peace for Afrin, Peace for Kurdistan (in English and Spanish), The Red Snow (in Chinese), Dead arguing in the corridors (in Arabic) Drunken trees (in Kurdish), Boredom of a tired statue (in Kurdish), Flor del Espinillo (in Spanish) A Rose for the Heart of Life, selected Poems (in English), Olvido (in Spanish), La harde de cerfs meurt de soif (in French), Jibîrkirin (in Kurdish), and Los Kurdos Y Dios (in Spanish). He has participated in many International Poetry Festivals including: Colombia, Nicaragua, France, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Germany, Romania, Lithuania, Morocco, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kosovo, Macedonia, Costa Rica, Slovenia, China, Taiwan, Cuba, Sweden, New York City, Sarajevo, Greece, Albania, Cyprus, Uruguay, India, Rockport (USA), Indonesia and Italy. He has won several awards: The International Best Poet Prize 2016 awarded in China by the International Poetry Translation and Research Centre, the Journal of the World Poets Quarterly (Multilingual) and the Editorial Board of the Chinese Poetry International, the Great Kurdish Poet Hamid Bedirkhan Award, awarded by the General Union of Kurdish Writers and Journalists (2022), the International “Bosnian Stećak” Award for Poetry, awarded by the Bosnia and Herzegovina Writers Union (2022), the Bangladesh Kathak International Literary Prize, awarded at the World Thinkers’ and Writers’ Peace Meet in Calcutta, India (2024) and he has also been rewarded with a honorific price at the Safi International Poetry Forum in Morocco (2024), and he was invited as a featured international poet to read at Walt Whitman's birthplace in Huntington, New York, for the "Walking with Whitman" program (2025).