The Final Question

Photo by SPC Leith Edgar

HABITUDE
—Yousif al-Sa'igh

Every day when I returned home
I used to ring this bell,
now mute.
Although I know there is no one at home
still I ring it just because
for many years nobody has rung it, this poor miserable bell.

_____________________

INTERMITTENT
—Yousif al-Sa'igh

Tonight
the nightmare was very condensed:
A dining tale
A bottle of wine
Three glasses
And three headless men.

_____________________

SUPPER
—Yousif al-Sa'igh

Every evening when I come home
my sadness comes out of his room
wearing his winter overcoat
and walks behind me.
I walk, he walks with me,
I sit, he sits next to me,
I cry, he cries for my cry,
until midnight
when we get tired.
At that point
I see my sadness go into the kitchen
open the refrigerator,
take a black piece of meat
and prepare my supper.

____________________

THE FINAL QUESTION
—Yousif al-Sa'igh

Love begins with a question
It ends and the question remains (without an answer).
We keep searching among words,
between fingers and memories
and between queries in our conscience
and other quandaries that share our beds.
Our suffering keeps growing
until the final question.


(Today's Iraqi poetry was translated by Saadi A Simawe, Ralph Savarese and Chuck Miller.)

______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

Journals (free publications): Rattlesnake Review14 is now available at The Book Collector; contributors and subscribers should have received theirs by now. If you're none of those, and can't get down to The Book Collector, send two bux (for postage) to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 and I'll mail you a copy. If you want more than one, please send $2 for the first one and $1 for copies after that. Next deadline, for RR15, is August 15. VYPER6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets10 (for kids 0-12) is also at The Book Collector; next deadline is Oct. 1.

Books/free broadsides: June's releases include Tom Miner's chapbook, North of Everything; David Humphreys' littlesnake broadside, Cominciare Adagio; and #3 in B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, this one featuring Jane Blue.

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is sleeping! There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August. Then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. Also coming in the Fall: new issues of the Review, Snakelets and VYPER [see the above deadlines], plus more littlesnake broadsides from NorCal poets near and far, and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October).