They ask me

‘Do you go back to Kurdistan

when the country is safe’

 

I answer:

If I ever should go back

To the womb

I would not ask for asylum

And not choose for a flight of my soul

I shall not let tremble

My body in the cold

 

I swing between two worlds

The one I am living in

The other in my dreams

A land for a passport

Written in the drawer

Of a municipal office

 

My other land

lies in the north

 

The north of my heart

 

 

 

SNOW

 

The evening is black

The snowflakes

Fall everywhere, they fall

Without thinking

 

I do not see you often

But I travel to you

As a white visitor

In the dark night

 

I will greet you

Wait for your cold warmth

Snow

 

 
DISCOVERY

 

there are many ways that

you must reach in yourself

there are many lights in the

itinerary of your heart of hearts that

you can discover

 

I am in the house

of memories

oh man get the light

out of your head to the outside

what is hidden in your heart of hearts

must burst out

as fresh memories

 

get me with power

to another world

put me in the mirror

of the light

so I can discover myself

 

 

 

RIVER KHASA 

 

the old river which I did not see for long

streams in my memory hart

Khasa, your water was my first discovery

day and night you were close to me

you have learned me to dare and to travel for ever

if I see now the Waal or the Rijn, I am not unfamiliair with them

I travel with their waves to the other side of the world,

they tell me other stories

 

does the sun still shine on your face?

do the fishes live in your belly?

the rivers purify my inner self

 

 

 

BLACK OIL

 

Look, the black smoke from the oil rises

The garden of the neighbours under the streetlamp

The flowers are not shy

The wintry river hits the bottom of the bridge

 

Are those memories to a solid wall

You can barely call it history

You hide everything

It cannot be open anymore

What is susceptible for you

Are the songs of antique

You did not see your far heavens

 

The day that you race from one neighbourhood to the other

There was no asphalt under our feet

And still the red stones were not unfamiliar

 

 

 

PENCIL

 

write my story on your mother’s body

the paper, let me sleep tonight beside you

with you I’ve made the loveliest travel

through you I’ve seen the soft side of life

pencil, understand my desire this night and

don’t let me alone, the winter is coming, be my heater

pencil, my desire shall comfort you

soften the winter

the border to you is blind

I touch you every day in my pocket

you live in me as a pet

that asks for many attention

pencil and paper

we are not alone

 

 

 

Translation into English: Yvonne van der Bijl, correction translation: Vivian Beck