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Oh New Zealand















By Peshawa Kakayi

Translated by Goran Sabah


 

Oh New Zealand!

I am not an immigrant,

But my tongue is an untiring courier

Turns my jaw into sky,

Takes me over the mountain range of my teeth,

I slip,

My teeth stabilize my balance,

I am scared of bears in the mountains,

Of a wolf, peeling off my skin and eating me,

Then a dog licks my bones My tongue would not be able to

Carry my bones and put them in my mouth

So that my teeth

Talk about their journey while grinding my bones!


When my teeth stabilized my balance,

The tongue licked me,

Gathered and put me back inside itself,

I got soaked in its saliva,

The tongue turned me into a thick and chewy word,

I came back to the paved street.

I passed through the Willington streets,

Without being a goose soaked under rain,

My wings fluttered and my tongue clucked.

Dogs behind me showed me their tongues,

I wished to be only a word,

When they bite me,

If peeled my skin and left only my bones,

I could at least fix my letters!


I walk through water,

Cannot guard the ocean,

But when I see its huge waves,

I raise, almost touching the clouds,

My bladder explodes, creating a hurricane,

My breath becomes a windstorm

My vision blurs,

Am I the storm?

Or a storm whirls me around.

I don't know where is the head of the ocean

To where its leg extends.

But I know it is about to drown me with both its hands,

It thinks I am British

Have come to take the diamond in its belly.


Oh ocean!

The ships passed on your chest,

Ploughed you,

Took your jewels out.


Oh ocean!

I am not one of the emperors who turned Asia into a storm,

Emptied the stomach of Africa,

I understand your conceived waves,

Dying because of human beings;

I understand your complaints,

Who didn't visit you

To open your belly!

I am not an explorer of language

Do not conquer any place,

Only look into your palms

To interpret eating wishes so that

You can read them in my poems.


 

Peshawa Abdalla Abdalrahman, also known as (Peshawa Kakayi), is a Kurdish poet and writer. He was born on April 19, 1984, in Qaladze, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. He completed his primary, secondary and high school education in the same city. In 2008-2009, he obtained a bachelor's degree in political sciences from Sulaimaniyah University. He has published articles in many newspapers and publications. He has published 21 collections of poems, written and published a research book, and a book on poetry based on four in-depth interviews. He also wrote a literary diary, that's an average of 24 books so far. He also has four books ready for publication, two of which are research and two of which are poetry.


Several studies and readings have been conducted on his poems. In addition, ten undergraduate studies have been conducted on his poems. Peshawa has also translated four books into Persian. He has translated a collection of poems into Arabic. He contributed toward a book entitled, 'Poets for Peace', published in Tunisia. He also has contributed to an anthology book entitled, "The Multinational Pen Soldiers", prepared and published by Mohammed Shamsul Haq Babu of Bangladesh. Several of his poems have also been translated into other languages including Albania, Uzbek, Spanish, Igbo, English, Indonesian, Bengali, Bosnian, Polish, Chinese, Russian, Serbian, Arabic, Persian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Macedonian.


He has been published in the United States in the first and second volumes of the American poetry journal, 'Paradise on EARTH', an international anthology. He has also received seventeen awards in 2020, 2021 and 2022.


 

Goran Sabah is a novelist, critic and translator based in Erbil, a captial of Iraqi Kurdistan. His notable works include 'Cheap Humans' (Science Fiction), 'How to Critique Novels' (Criticism) and 'How to Write Novels.'

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