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Live Encounters Arab Poets in Translation August 2023
Ishtar returns to Uruk, poems by Parween Habib.
Ishtar returns to Uruk
I get arrogant… I know that your love never
Lights up the dark corridors that surround me
To say it is over
Please Gilgamesh… Follow the echo of your love
(Oh Mamish Bamish)… My soul is a sacrifice for your heart
*
Like a phoenix, shake the ashes off my shoulders
So the fire does not burn my heart
Nor does the water extinguish the embers of the glow between my ribs
And wash away the blackness from me
And I have nothing left but my love
And longing for you that leaks between the pores
Scattering me in the range and increases my passion
Defaming me in the country
For you, between my heart and July was the separation
And between my heart and all the love
Divorce was before my eyes darkened
With your love
For you, I saddled the seduction horses
Flew with it towards your sun
Indifferent to combustion
Intercede for you until you yearn
Crazy and running after you bare heart
Wandering by meeting
I hope you appreciate what Astarte did
She sheds our love her blood, lest it dies
And the passers-by bury it
As a martyr in the land of Iraq
If I die… For this love
Bury my heart… a bird in the Valley of Peace
Why Gilgamesh disavowed our love
And left me on the embers of pains
Ruminating my love alone
And our story went with spiteful mumbles
That «Inana»
Is chasing an illusion of mud
And she is the one who came from a distant sky
I renounced the throne of the gods
For you, I became a lover of dust
I only found resentment tearing my soul apart
And sprinkles the salt of ignoring and stings my worried veins
So I gathered what my wounds exposed
And spread my sails to ruin
And a fountain gushed out of the eye
When I hear a disturbance behind me: what is wrong with her?
I am the coveted Venus
So how can the mud resist me
Reject my heart on a plate of nostalgia
I am the beginning and the end
The dust does not move from the brilliant planet
Since thousands of years
I sacrifice myself for you «Uruk», without you pure ruin
I will sing in it if you are absent
An epic of moaning
And water my heart if it is swept by thirst
A bunch of mirages
I get arrogant… I know that your love never
Lights up the dark corridors that surround me
To say it is over
Please Gilgamesh… Follow the echo of your love
(Oh Mamish Bamish)… My soul is a sacrifice for your heart
*
Like a phoenix, shake the ashes off my shoulders
So the fire does not burn my heart
Nor does the water extinguish the embers of the glow between my ribs
And wash away the blackness from me
And I have nothing left but my love
And longing for you that leaks between the pores
Scattering me in the range and increases my passion
Defaming me in the country
For you, between my heart and July was the separation
And between my heart and all the love
Divorce was before my eyes darkened
With your love
For you, I saddled the seduction horses
Flew with it towards your sun
Indifferent to combustion
Intercede for you until you yearn
Crazy and running after you bare heart
Wandering by meeting
I hope you appreciate what Astarte did
She sheds our love her blood, lest it dies
And the passers-by bury it
As a martyr in the land of Iraq
If I die… For this love
Bury my heart… a bird in the Valley of Peace
Everything should be lived
a second time
Somewhere
The echo of wandering footsteps
Clouds pass slowly
Like post-dinner sleepiness
Like the word, that has not a root
Like a lonely cry
Connecting the silence of the night
With a spring body
Like a musical note
Crossing dormant shelves of books
Like a sorrel groaning in the cup after harvesting
Like a funny cartoon
In an embroidered dress hanging with doubt
Like a deferred cold
Delayed for tomorrow
Like a last rustle of light
Rising on a bed of ashes
This body is hardly a body!
Everything should be lived a second time.
© Parween Habib
Parween Habib is a poet, an academic researcher and a media expert. In 2011, she won the Dynamic Women Award at the continental level from George Washington University in the USA. Thus obtaining the first international award granted to successful women around the world with inspiring experiences. She also won national and international awards in different fields including media, poetry and other cultural activities. She is the author of four critical books, three poetry collections, and two children’s books. Her poetry has been translated into seven languages.
In addition, she holds a master’s degree with distinction in Literary Criticism from Ain Shams University, Cairo. She also holds a Ph.D. with distinction in Literary Criticism, through a study of the language of women’s poetry in the Gulf from 1975 to 2004, from the Arab League University, Egypt. Through her talk show program in Dubai TV, she interviewed 500 Arab novelists, poets, and thinkers.