Six Short Poems on the Iran-Iraq War
1
War is over.
To water burned trees
a fireman
hurries.
2
HAVE YOU SEEN THEM?
LAST SEEN AT THE BATTLEFRONT
ON A LITTLE LAND MINE
a poster
on the wall
with a picture of your feet
-still
no sign of them
at all-
3
Martyrs are alive, mother said.
That means
you’re not dead.
If so, how
the river fishes
have mangled your flesh?
I’ll be there one day
with a massive seine net:
collecting your pieces,
solving you
my jigsaw puzzles.
4
Sometimes you come, sometimes your name does.
Sometimes you stay, sometimes your name does.
Now
in this vast minefield
you, choosing:
Unidentified or
Missing?
5
No alert
No gun aiming
No broken sound barrier
Peacefully white
white
white
If the fog
would have eased the calm;
If the clouds
would have come down
to cease fire.
6
Me,
a rotten sofa
in the rain.
You,
an outlying soldier
with a bullet
in the flank.
How late we found each other.
- Ali Asadollahi, an award-winning Iranian poet, is the author of six Persian poetry books. Asadollahi is a permanent member and the former secretary of the Iranian Writers’ Association (founded in 1968). His poems and translations are published/forthcoming in Bellingham Review, Consequence, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Guernica Editions, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and others.
- Email: asadollahi1380@gmail.com
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