Id Al-Adh´ha, Christmas, New Year 2008
Horror in Iraq ...Peace in Costa Rica
I live between the three extremes of my three Homelands:
horror in Iraq, peace in Germany and peace in Costa Rica.
Here are few photos of peace in Costa Rica I made them on December 22, 2007
during a one day visit to Jacó, a town and tourist resort on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
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Women at Café Punto 4, preparing tamales, a traditional food of Christmas (maíz dough (English: corn, maize), two or three types of meat, vegetables wrapped and cooked in banana leaves.) |
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Lonely runner? Not exactly. Parents are nearby...I took this photo while sitting at the Italian ice-cream café. | After a short shower. December is the start of the dry season (summer) in Costa Rica. |
Tourists ....I took this photo while sitting at the Italian ice-cream café. |
Probably this poem "Seda negra" (Black Silk), which I wrote in Spanish for my wife Ana Mercedes in 2006, is one of my best love poems. I usually don´t reread my poems frequently. There are even poems which I don´t want to read again at all. But, if I find myself rereading a poem, then I know that poem has something special. That is the case wth this poem. I read it again recently and thought I will republish it at the opening page of my website. I will soon add an English translation below, but I have no illusions: no translation can ever match the brilliance, soft energy and precision of the original Spanish. |
Seda negra En
la otra casa que es el mar, |
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Mi esposa Ana Mercedes Rodriguez Acevedo (a quien dedico este poema) en un campo en Turingia, Alemania, durante uno de nuestros viajes con motocicleta en el verano de 1978. El poema no hace referencia directamente a este evento pero si a esta maravillosa y extraordinaria chica. |
Original |
Translation |
Die Gaben seines glänzenden Geistes ----------------------------------------------- |
At dawn, when the lights are still humid,
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L e t t e r F r o m A f a r Personal bulletin of Iraqi poet Anwar Al-Ghassani (LFA is a private letter sent to friends only. If at any time, for whatever reason, you want to be removed from my mailing list, please do not hesitate to notify me. If later you want to resume receiving the letter, please notify me and I will be pleased to add you again to the list. Thank you.) My gratitude to all friends who have sent me their condolences. Best regards, Anwar Al-Ghassani My dear Sargon, our “Assyrian Lion”, talking to Mouayed Al-Rawi and to me at our favorite Café Sociale in Berlin at 12:22 midday of Thursday, August 2, 2007. This is one frame from a short video sequence I made on that day. Poet Sargon Boulus dies in Berlin I have just received the sad news. My dear friend, our Iraqi poet Sargon
Boulus (Al-Habbaniya, 1943 - Berlin, Oct. 22, 2007), one of the greatest poets of our times, has died today in Berlin. He was 64. Postscript
Anwar ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
... In The Wonderful Summer Of My Sweet Berlin ... |
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Iraqi poets Anwar Al-Ghassani (l.) Mouayed Al-Rawi (r.), and Sargon Boulus (on the opposite side of the red table), at our favorite Café Sociale in Berlin. We have been friends since our teenage years in Kirkuk. The days of our recent meeting in Berlin (July-August 2007) were, as always when we meet, days of light and warmth, humor and laughter, and lively conversations, rich in intellectual substance, creative ideas, experience and knowledge. For me, it was wonderful and an honor to be with my dears Mouayed and Sargon, two warm and intelligent personalities, two great poets. With the passing of the years, the bond that emerged at physical and mythical Kirkuk has grown in strength. Our friendship has become finer, warmer, richer and more elegant, imbedded in affinity, harmony, affection, sympathy and respect. Few things in life are so joyous, beautiful, amusing, intense and serene as the days when we meet. (Photos: S. Boulus & A. Al-Ghassani, Thursday, August 2, 2007) |
Iraq - II Writing & Editing Status: started
in San José, Friday, September 21, 2007, and will be completed
around
March 2008.(I am including few poems written on earlier dates.) |
Message To Sinan Antoon sinan nice creative stimulating text arriving on a sunny bastard gloomy hope evoking and indeed very dark morning that will be spent without remorse capturing evasive iraq while i hit my back with chains the arms sink in water and fingers send a sos message and the eye will arrive to reduce the distance accuse and cheer up agonizing souls do not wait for the song it was sucked into the wind tunnel my deities waiting for grass to green up on the other bank of the river hated green hills presenting the dead all vertically aligned puffing purple smoke their survival kits are in the sinking boat i am still mourning your birds you caught me unaware i never suspected such pain and your birds i mean the doves were those of my father who was a fan of genuine good doves dancing in the air in a sky that has gone and never ever be retrieved for it is not about food and drink it is about heavenly games we played illusions that migrated with their objects no fear more will arrive and this is to be continued i mean the new game not mechanical doves i mean real game we are setting the stage for this is the container the script and the form do not and never try to understand fully sorry it was only an innocent comment on a message thanks sinan Anwar Al-Ghassani What is this, your Baghdad - you ask me (Remembering Ahlam) In
the thick of the night, Crisp
were the nights at that home I
trampled on a desire of the now distant girl. A Momentary of At-Taji Recollections On The Morning After, Our Home And Iraq included Homely thoughts, evaporated ideas Anwar Al-Ghassani The Comeback I have been
the disguised subject of myself, I now open the channel, O, tortured mother, Al-Mussal’ lah In Kirkuk This land of lively people is real, The tombstones are real, Nothing resists the wind forever. Only recent dead have company: Wait for spring, Water will produce its wind, Anwar Al-Ghassani Crossing Diyala River At As-Sa’diya On Horseback Coming from where doves You enrich yourself by saying, The horse trots on summery white stones, At night, in the train compartment, Anwar Al-Ghassani Iraq’s Poem Of Defiance I shed numbered tears on my dead. I call you back: Obtain my space as hope. Your homes have shades, Your rich and stern features are eager to deliver Those eager eyes of female just born Feed each other in my timelessness; Don’t hesitate to expose your chests to the hot wind. Anwar Al-Ghassani
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