[Muzaffar al-Nawwab (b. Baghdad, 1934) is one of Iraq’s most famous and influential poets. He studied literature in Baghdad and worked as a teacher. He joined the Iraqi Communist Party at a very early age and was imprisoned and tortured under the Ba’th. He left Iraq in 1970 and lived in exile until 2011 when he returned to Baghdad for a visit.

In the Old Tavern

Muzaffar al-Nawwab

( Translated from Arabic)

The tavern

is not that far

What good is that?

You are like a sponge

Suckling on taverns

But never getting drunk

 

What is left of this night’s life

In the drunkards’ glasses

Saddens you

Why did they leave them?

Were they lovers?

Were they faggots like those at summit meetings?

Was it a prostitute

With no one in this tattered world?

Had you been here

You would have hidden her desire in your mythical jacket

Whispered warmly in her cold lungs:

Is the cold killing you?

What is killing me more is partly the warmth,

and partly the situation itself!

My lady, we are prostitutes just like you

Misery fornicates with us

False religion, false thought, and false bread and poems

Even the color of blood

is forged and made grey in funerals

And all the people approve

And the ruler is not one-eyed!

My lady, how can one be honorable

When the secret police stick their hands everywhere?

What is yet to come is even worse

We are put in the juice-maker

For oil to come out

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( Posted by F. Sheikh )