Preserved Can Poem by Rosa Jamali

Preserved in a Can
(A Parody on War Poetry)

A poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian to English by the author

We have been sleeping all along with spinach leaves and the ground under me was solid, stony, and rock-like
On the gulf, there was a manuscript that your body has been lost
our hands were getting out of your skull
On the Persian Gulf, there is a piece of writing that says you have been lost forever!
And you as my reader, you know those leaves cannot be scissored for so many years
My lips have been sewn to null
It's been a decade since the war
One hundred years, a century, one thousand five hundred years!
'Sorry I've lost my watch on Iraqi soil
So do I have to run all this way in the speed of light to the land of Zion? ! '
Off the embankment
You and your second body had no hands
But your body was so stout and preserved the pieces
I couldn't fix your arms
The reversed fingers are growing out of his skull, Scratching in vain
My face was just a masque and I was acting well
I was all these martyrs, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, and the last
I was galloping all around that Arabian lowland
My pieces were separated preserved in a can
Turning to the pieces of light and wine!
Now you are the name of this street and I'm not streetwise
I'm swerving, going backward, finding a parking space for my body
The path is dusty and I desperately need photochromic glasses
Your arms are cut in pieces and your head covered in blood
I'm getting back now
I've washed and buried one thousand, six hundred and sixty-six martyrs
They were all anonymous
We had been sleeping in spinach leaves
I had lost the headquarter
And lost the time
As if the martyr's mother is still waiting
Is it possible to sew these leaves to sth?
Never, ...!
Though it's been ten years since we buried him
Like this unnamed Persian gulf!