Credible Lies
By Faleeha
Hassan
Oh, Faleeha
How brilliant is your future
I whisper in my ear
And pat my shoulder
Every morning
I open my day with a big lie
I tell myself
Faleeha
leave the news to the promoters of
rumors
And the houses being bombed by
skilled pilots
They will be rebuilt immediately
afterward
Leave Iraqi women to be sold in the
Sbaya Bazaar in Mosul
Mothers will give birth to other
daughters nine months later
Don’t worry about the man who sells
his life for a handful of coins under the sweltering sun
One day he will be able to get a
Chinese umbrella
Don’t worry about your niece whose
face now being eaten by skin cancer
She will get through photoshop a
wonderful picture for her profile on Facebook
Why do you look so long at picture
of your friend who is missing from Kuwait war?
He is lucky
He survived the darkness of grave
Oh, Faleeha
Leave the children of Baghdad to
wake up to violent explosions
Music is no longer fit for their
mornings
Write down the martyrs names on a
piece of a paper and place it in your old coat and leave it in the closet
Or send it to the dry cleaners
I’m tired of counting the names of
the martyrs and the war never ends
Faleeha
Don’t plan for the future
It is as a close as a sniper’s bullet
Yes ,
I open my day with a big
Big
Big lie
But no lie can cover the scary truth
Faleeha
Hassan- Biography
She
is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, playwriter born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967,
who now lives in the United States.
Faleeha
is the first woman to wrote poetry for children in Iraq.
She
received her master's degree in Arabic literature, and has now published 20 books.
Her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosevih, Indian, French,
Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek
and Albanian. Ms. Hassan has received many awards in Iraq andthroughout
the Middle East for her poetry and short stories.
Faleeha
Hassan has also had her poems and short stories published in a variety of
American magazines such as: Philadelphia poets 22, Harbinger Asylum, Brooklyn
Rail April2016, Screaming mamas, The Galway Review, Words Without Borders,
TXTOBJX, Intranslation, SJ Magazine, Nondoc, Wordgathering , SCARLET LEAF
REVIEW, Courier-Post, I am not a Silent
Poet, Taos Journal, Inner Child Press, Atlantic City Press, SJ Magazine,
Intranslation Magazine, The Guardian, Words Without Borders, Courier-Post, Life
and Legends,
Wordgathering,
SCARLET LEAF REVIEW, Indiana Voice Journal, The Bees Are Dead, IWA, PoetrySoup,
Poetry Adelaide Literary Magazine, Philly, The Fountain Magazine, DRYLAND, The
Blue Mountain Review, Otoliths, Taos Journal of Poetry and Art, TXTOBJX, DODGING
THE RAIN, Poetry Adelaide Literary Magazine, NonDocPhilly, DRYLAND, American
Poetry Review, The Fountain Magazine, Uljana Wolf, Arcs, Tiferetand Ice Cream Poetry
Anthology, Dryland Los Angeles underground art &writing Magazine,Opa Anthology of contemporary , BACOPA Literary Review , Better than Starbucks
Magazine, Tweymatikh ZQH Magazine,TUCK Magazine, Street
Light Press andEmpty Mirror Magazine
