Hussein Habasch

The Love Of Two Trees

Two trees were madly in love

The vindictive woodchopper

Cut their trunks off

He took them home

By chance the two trees met in the fire place

They embraced happily

And burned together.

Translated by Muna Zinati

Heartbreak

I have no homeland on the walls of which I can scribble

With children’s chalk:

"Long live my homeland".

I have no homeland to sip in the morning

With my morning coffee,

At sunrise as warmth covers it.

I have no homeland that can breathe through my lungs

And through whose lungs I can in turn breathe

Whose husky voice I can be

And which can in turn my voice be

I can be the villain, the brawler, the rebel, the stubborn

While it is the sage, the judicious, the gracious, the large-souled.

I have no homeland to write on the brass door plate

Of one of its houses:

« This is the house of Hussein Habasch

welcome friends »

I have no homeland in whose pubs I can get drunk

Until very late at night

In whose streets I can hang around

And in my heart it can in turn can hang around

A homeland I can wear and which in turn can wear me

A homeland I can gently reproach

And which in turn can gently reproach me

Just like friends.

I have no homeland.

Translated by Norddine Zouitni

Sad Kurdish Poems

I read sad Kurdish poems

Yesterday I saw a dead bird

Lying on the roadside

I carried it gently into my palm

Which I curved inward like a nest

I took it to the cemetery

And buried it in a tiny grave shaped like my heart.

Today I saw a crushed rose!

I picked its torn petals very gently

And put them on the bird’s epitaph

The one I saw yesterday

Lying dead on the roadside.

I’ll probably carry on

Reading sad poems.

Translated by Norddine Zouitni

Hussein Habasch

Hussein Habasch: He is a poet from AFRIN, KURDISTAN, lives in Bonn-Germany. Born in 1970. Some of his poems were translated to many languages such as, English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Turkish, Persian, Albanian, Uzbek, Russian, Romanian ,Italian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Kosovar, Portuguese and Hungarian. A selection of his poems have been published in more than an international poetic anthology. He wrote many books. He participated in many international festivals of poetry, for example in Colombia (Medellin), Nicaragua (Granada), France, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Germany, Romania, Lithuania, Morocco, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kosovo, Costa Rica, Bulgaria, Macedonia “Struga Poetry Evenings”, Slovenia…