Abd al Wahhab Al-Bayati

1926–1999 / Baghdad

The Village Market

The sun, emaciated, flies,
And a soldier's old boots
Pass from hand to hand,
And a peasant stares into the void:
''At the beginning of the surely fill with coins,
And I shall buy these boots.''
The cry of a cock escaped from its cage,
And a little saint:
'None scratches your skin like your own nail'',
And ''the road to Hell is closer than the path of paradise.''
The flies,
And the men tried from harvesting:
''They sowed, and we have not eaten;
We sow, despite ourselves, and they eat;''
And those who return from the city,
O what a blind beast,
Whose victims are our dead,
The bodies of women.
The good-natured dreamers,
And the lowing of cows,
And the woman selling bracelets and perfumes,
Crawling around like a beetle:
''O Sodom, o my dear skylark!
The perfumier cannot repair the damage of oppressive fate.''
Blackened rifles, and a plough,
And a flickering fire,
And a blacksmith with a bloodshot eyelid
Lured by sleep:
''Birds of a feather flock together,
And the sea can never wash away sins and tears.''
The sun in the liver of the heavens,
And the women selling fruit collect their baskets:
''The eyes of my beloved are stars
And his breast is a bed of spring-roses.''
The deserted market, and the small shops,
And the flies,
Hunted by children,
And the distant horizon,
And the yawning of huts in the palm-grove.
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