Yatabaghdadu
J. Quinn Brisben 20 MAY 2003
It is a real word, a verb
In Arabic, meaning to try
To live like the elites of
Baghdad in its storied days,
Which were still being storied
At the Beit al-Iraqi last
November when Amal served
Tea and a pastry with syrup
And cream called kahi, and we
Exchanged a few stories and
Songs and, of course, did a
Little business and talked some
Politics and religion, which is
What Baghdad has always been about.
A ceramic tablet hangs on my wall,
Not looted and only a copy anyhow,
From Amal’s shop and home, close
To a bridge on the Tigris, thus bombed
In both 1991 and 2003, and I hope
Soon back in business, for that last
Bombing was pre-invasion and Amal’s
Neighbors, though perhaps envious, were
Not looters like the camp followers who
Stole treasures from the museum
While troops were guarding the oil.
It is cuneiform, although I cannot tell
What kind, though not the earliest.
When the original of that clay was marked,
People had been writing for many centuries,
And this was done hurriedly, the lines
On a slant, not praising some king
Or god, not an epic about heroes
Ravaging cities; that would be written
With more care; just words about
Business, everyday love, gossip,
The sort of things we talked about
When I bought it for five U. S. dollars
Just to show I had been in Baghdad.
The original might be on its way to
Some collector who justifies crime
By exhibiting taste and scholarship,
Perhaps willing it to another museum
To avoid taxes when the trail of
Theft is no longer fresh. I hope
It has not become dust or mud
Like so much of our past. War
Does that. I mention that because
I am against war, and the happy
Few who like fresh poems, hold
Old clay tablets worth more than
Dying children, also war’s result,
And I want them to work for peace.
War makers should not bomb cities
Whose poets they do not know,
Should not bomb bridges where the
Passage of almond-eyed women from
Al-Karkh to al-Rusafah and back again
Was noted in the Ninth Century by
Ali Ibn al-Jahm, and a later bridge
Jisr al-Shuhada, which means
The Martyr’s Bridge, where bullets
From thugs in power killed the
Brother of the poet al-Jawahiri
In 1948. That poet lived in exile,
Wrote of Baghdad’s bridges from Prague,
And is buried in Damascus. He called
Baghdad umm al-basatin, the mother
Of orchards, orchards recently burned.
Now the occupying troops look
For oblivion in bars in the narrow
Street named for Abu Nuwas who
Sang of wine and disillusionment
Thirteen centuries ago in such dives.
Let us hope the banned poems of
Muzaffer al-Nawwab, smuggled in
On tapes during the reign of
The last dictator before this one
Are circulating freely. I hope
Baghdad is a nest of singing
Birds like the ones sold in
The Suq al-Ghazl on Fridays
And dreamed of by banned poets.
There is no real ending to
Thought and memory except
Death. Baghdad’s most famous
Narrator, the one you heard of
Even before you knew that
The city was going to be bombed
And invaded despite our outcry,
Always used to stop at dawn
With the tale incomplete so
She could live another day while
She made up or stole another
Story to put off the killers
Who are always in power in
Baghdad and, I fear, everywhere.
