Two Poems by Haitham K. Al-Zubbaidi – ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY
A Helmet of Brass
By Haitham K. Al-Zubbaidi
Translated by Ali Layth Azeez
Nothing in me betrays the clouds’ expectations
except that
I am so deep in aridity.
Nothing in me stirs the stars’ wonder
except for this helmet of brass.
So, whenever a lightning of war ignited,
I gleamed,
gathering the kohl of sorrows
from the forest of patience and mothers,
and disappeared.
I counted the flock of losses,
gathered the wailing of the fallen,
into pillows of poetry
for the tears of silk,
then dusted them with ash
and got lost.
I am too aged for war
fifty years
wrestling its raging bulls,
collecting its relics year by year:
horns,
heads,
skins,
bones.
I line them up
at the gate of hope,
offering them all to the divine,
so that the sky might rein in its bulls
and spare the fields of words,
so a new cedar might rise
in the myth of death and the impossible.
Nothing in me betrays the doves’ faith
except this:
I do not know how to coo.
Because Homer is Blind
By Haitham K. Al-Zubbaidi
Translated by Ali Layth Azeez
We never knew Greece,
but we sought refuge on its shores,
and it sheltered us,
and, for a moment,
enticed us with its blissful coastlines.
We never knew the Greeks,
but we heard of their theaters,
of goddesses of wisdom,
of cities besieged,
then plundered,
then burned,
in tales worn dull with time.
Greece knew nothing of us
except for the sunlit hue of our faces,
bathed in olives,
spilling over us
like midday sand,
searing our skin
with the fire foretold
in the lines of new myths.
Greece never knew our names,
our tribes,
our travels,
across the deserts where we grew,
as sexual trees and facts
until we incited the clouds,
troubled them,
and so upon our sands,
they poured down
lava,
scoundrels
and stubborn illusions.
The Greeks never learned our tongue,
nor the taste of our tears,
nor our lament.
Our eyes never liked the wild sea,
but ever since we first wore illusions,
we have roamed the heaths,
shading our heads
with palm fronds and dreams,
calling the flood of illusion upon the desert a sea,
pressing toward it in hopeful strides,
-Oh, my people, it is no more than an illusion!
Our sea is sweet,
but the sea of others is one of torment.
This is not a sea of our making,
nor is this moon the one of our dreams.
We are the truth
on the path of falsehood,
drawing it,
fabricating it,
and stuffing it full of certainty.
We, the ones burdened by the cruelty of the desert,
have no sea,
but the flowing “sea” of verse[1],
which we compose,
which we ride,
which we fill with ships.
And because Homer never knew us all,
he never spoke of us to his people,
he never said that:
We are the writing and the carvings on the impossible,
we are the letters of the alphabet,
we are the obelisks that are rich
with talismans and rhymes.
That:
We invented the miracle of names
from the ache of the rebaba,
then inscribed upon clay
the pains of wounded violins,
so their sorrow could be preserved
in the oasis of agony
the Euphrates once outlined.
We devised the verse of creation:
Tammuz shall be crucified twice,
and upon the palm trunks,
we hung our elegies,
and upon the desolate hills,
like thorns, the sorrows of mothers grow.
We grow, too.
And from pain torn open in the flute’s toneholes,
we rise each dawn,
bareheaded, hastening forward,
offering the seasons their splendor, their names,
when the rites are complete.
From the language of sorrow echoing through the night,
we gave our laments the names of melodies:
Nawahand, Hijaz, Bayat.
On towering obelisks,
the slaughterer inscribed his tales with our blood.
So say what you will of us,
chant whatever verses you please,
in Greece, no one will like the sound of our melodies,
and no tree will know our name,
no road will recognize us.
No woman will fathom the impact of the desert on us,
and take us into her tavern,
and quench our fire with wine.
And because Homer was blind,
he saw in us nothing but savages
Abyssinians or Turks,
Or cursed Saracens from the damned East.
And because Homer never heard our voices,
he never believed
that we were the ones who created
all these verses, these strings,
on which he played his proud song,
of Greek triumphs at majestic Troy.
It was we who taught the god of war his might,
his authority, his power.
And how the vanguards of Phoenicians and Greeks
build their fortresses upon the shores,
then retreat across the sea
to distant islands.
And because Homer never truly cared,
he saw in us nothing but Persians,
barbarians,
degenerates,
Caucasians,
gypsies and killers.
He calls us herders of mountain goats,
worshippers of myth,
eaters of clay.
Not once did he write
a single line in his epics
of moons that bloom from our skulls,
of the reeds that lured the madness of the flute into our blood.
And because Homer never laid an eye on us at all,
he saw in us nothing but
sailors of a diseased illusion,
pirates of a bitter time.
He never read the obelisk of our eternal sorrow,
since the time of a great goddess spreading love in Uruk,
between water and reeds,
to a god of stone raising the banner of the outcasts,
to a god of dates
who ferments our sorrow, kneaded with palm fronds in Basra:
“Sweetening the soul upon our tongues, pouring wine into our being.”[2]
Is it because Homer is blind
that he paid no heed to our blood?
That he did not believe we spoke of peace?
That he no longer listens to this confession, this chant?
He overlooked us… and believed the lie of ships
that roamed the sea for years
filled with weary soldiers
and a selfish captain, craving only glory.
And we — there in Uruk — still sing through the labyrinths of eternity,
offering hymns to the goddesses of meaning in the sky.
And we build towers, hoping to ascend to the sky,
so it may see us.
And because we fear for this cooing,
lest flames consume it and vanish.
For the verse of lamentation, we have become
an obelisk,
a ziggurat,
a tablet of clay.
Yet Homer never traced upon the stones
the laws of cities
waging love to survive.
[1] In Arabic, the word بحر (English: sea) is used for the sea and for poetic meter.
[2] This quote is taken from a poem by Abdulameer Jarass (1965-2003), Poems Against the Wind (1993).
A Note from the Translator
Studying poetry can have its drawbacks for poets, as they may be drawn to imitate the poets they study, especially those from different languages, cultures, and histories. At first glance, a reader of Al-Zubbaidi’s poetry might conclude that he is influenced by T. S. Eliot. However, this influence is not of the negative kind. Al-Zubaidi cleverly escapes the vicious trap of mere imitation by employing techniques similar to Eliot’s, particularly allusion and classical references, not to turn his poetry into a melting pot of disparate mythologies and texts, but rather to weave them into a uniquely Iraqi and contemporary framework. While Eliot used classical references to evoke a sense of fragmentation and cultural decline, Al-Zubbaidi repurposes them to reclaim historical narratives and infuse them with new meaning. His poetry challenges the Western literary canon, urging it to recognize the voices that have long been ignored. Rather than presenting a world disillusioned by modernity, Al- Zubbaidi’s poetry restores continuity, bridging the past with the present and placing Iraq’s literary and historical identity at the center of his work. Through this, he not only dialogues with the Western tradition but also reshapes it, asserting a poetic vision that is both deeply rooted in Iraqi heritage and strikingly modern. As a man who lived through multiple wars, he channels the collective memory of his people into his poetry, transforming personal and national suffering into a lyrical testament of resilience. His verses do not merely mourn lost histories but also revive them, challenging dominant narratives that have long overlooked Iraq’s intellectual and artistic contributions. Al-Zubaidi’s engagement with classical and modern influences does not dilute his voice but strengthens it, allowing him to carve a space where Iraqi identity asserts itself against erasure.
Haitham K. Al-Zubbaidi (b. April 18, 1971) is an Iraqi poet and academic from Wasit Province. He holds a Master’s (1998) and Ph.D. (2005) in English literature from the University of Baghdad, where he is currently an Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature. His research explores comparative literature and modern poetry, while his poetry blends history, mythology, and human experience. His published collections include The Weeping Table (2000), The Fog (2002), No One Told Me I Was Defeated (2013), and Because Homer Is Blind (2022).
Ali Layth Azeez is an Iraqi scholar, translator, and content creator. He obtained a master’s in English Literature from the University of Baghdad. He has translated a collection of Gothic short stories and Julia by Sandra Newman (publication pending) into Arabic. He currently works as an instructor at the American University in Baghdad.
