Two Poems by Saadi Youssef
Translated by Khaled Mattawa
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I’ve said it before, and I say it now on this London evening
before it’s too late:
I am the last communist!
No one will mistake my flag,
red with a hammer
and a sickle too.
My comrades no longer raise the red banner.
I’ve seen them raise the stripes and stars
of the Aryan Yankee,
I’ve seen them nullified like aborted fetuses,
abject local informants, the lowest of the low.
One of them served as an interpreter in interrogation rooms.
So, what do I say now?
Those who used to be my comrades remain as they were
abject local informants, the lowest of the low,
interpreters inculcated in interrogation rooms…
I’ll say what I’ve said before:
I am the last communist.
Iraqi Communists Retire
When I said: Iraq is done,
people laughed.
They said: Oh, L’Akhdar has lost his mind!
But now
the retirees send me their warmest greetings
as if I were Resurrection’s trumpeter.
But, my amazing comrades, have not heard me right due to
the clinking
clinking
clinking of drachmas.
Did you not hear that Lenin intended to do away with money, comrades?
And now?
What?
You return like dogs to the cities that fed you
and sheltered you
and
you’ll say:
“Indeed, our Master, Saadi Youssef, has told the truth…”
Still, you return
like dogs to your butcher’s house.
You would say a third time,
a fourth time,
and a fifth,
etc…
“We, Master Saadi, are your obedient followers.
Please oblige us.
Permit us, please, we kiss your shoes, to retire.”
Oh, comrades,
that Iraq is over.
Where will you end up?
Editor’s note: You can find many more of Youssef’s last-Communist poems on the website saadiyousif.com.
Saadi Youssef (1934-2021) is considered one of the most important contemporary poets in the Arab world. He was born near Basra, Iraq. Following his experience as a political prisoner in Iraq, he spent most of his life in exile, working as a teacher and literary journalist throughout North Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of over forty books of poetry, two novels, a book of short stories, several books of essays, and memoir. Youssef, who had spent the last two decades of his life in London, was a leading translator to Arabic of works by Walt Whitman, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Federico Garcia Lorca, among many others.
Khaled Mattawa’s latest book of poems is Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf, 2020). He is the William Wilhartz Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, and editor-in-chief of Michigan Quarterly Review.