HELEN TALIA

Sabah al Khaeyr ya Baghdad 

Baghdad, what will it be today, serve up a bomb for breakfast at your cafe'?

Do not anticipate a civil war.  All hell has broken loose and your children are divided.

Are you at war with your own ego?  Why are you punishing the fruits of your womb?

Have you forgotten the pain of your labor that you have endured for centuries?

Is this a punishment or war ~ insurgents everywhere.

 I can not lift my head in front of the world ~ you shamed me when you threw me across your border.  I became a bastard!  I became an outcast!

Everywhere I go I see people frightened.  Why are they whispering, I can not read their thoughts?

My heart can not sink any deeper.  It has already broken into one million pieces.

I am afraid that with my sigh, tears will well-up in my eyes and I will be noticed.

And thus I succumb to the sunny throughts of escaping my country one day.  

I am not weak, I am an Iraqi.  I have lived through a greater betrayal.  I have survived an embargo.  I have fed my children straw in their bread for breakfast.

Tesbahee ala Khaeyr ya Baghdad

June 2009

Welcome to my world, where dreams and realities meet at dawn, unleashing sexual powers, unearthing sacred pleasures, between the womb and bosom, where the grandeur secrets of the Middle-Eastern woman's heart are revealed.

January 2008 

Having ventured into netherworld, I have lived in fullness, in every season ~ I have loved in Neesan (spring), lived in Tamuz (summer), withered in Cherey~yeh (fall), and died in Qarta D' Sitwa (winter).  I have been destroyed by love's thrusts, vanished in senses, yet I have inspired to be re-awakened.  I became immortally beloved. 

January 2008 

There will never be a day in which I did not love you

Even before your beautiful spirit embodied the person

I will come into your heart and love you, I said

And guide you, when borders seem misplaced, valleys unfathomed

I will bless you to be my Daughter

And carry you strong as your Father

And when I find you alone (praying) at daybreak, I will bless you even more till yonder time

Even when I have grown old and gray

Until this flesh has withered astray

But even then, I will watch over you with each passing day

 I will bless your children, and your children’s children

Fifty years from now, I will be there at graduations and wedding days

And finally,

I will be the one waiting at the gate

When death claims victory over your final day

And into your father’s arms you will sweetly lay

August 2006 

What about you dismayed my attention from the rest of the crowd?

Tell me, was it the gesture in a calm question you asked, simply saying,

“Whatsoever questions you have, I will be delighted to answer them.”

“Shlama Alloukh,” I said, as I gently stepped into your world.

You took my hand in a handshake, and at the first glance our eyes met,

I knew then that my world would never be the same again.

“I am a Geologist,” you said, “who loves art in a different form; art that is unique, inventive.” 

“Everything about you is unique,” I said to myself in a hush.

“Your art, the harp you gently moved behind, and the innocent smile I stood seeing from behind the lens.”

I longed to know the person inside those eyes.

I knew at once that I had entered the age of innocence.

May 2006 

Forever, my dear,

I will cherish the love that bonded our hearts,

the memories that strengthened our souls,

Boots

Too high

Hard on walk

 Slips on frozen ice

Falls 

1985