Goran

International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Jan, 2004

Goran was the most influential Kurdish of the Twentieth Century. Born Abdulla Sulaeiman in Halabja in 1904, he studied in Kirkuk. When his father and elder brother died he left school and worked as a teacher for several years in the Hawraman region. In the 1940s when the Allies established a Radio Station in Jaffa, Palestine, Goran served as Kurdish staff member. Active in the Iraqi Communist Party he was arrested and tortured many times during the period of the monarchy. Subsequently in Republican Iraq he was appointed a lecturer at the Department of Kurdish language and literature at the University of Baghdad. As a member of the Iraqi Committee of peace and solidarity he often traveled to the former Soviet Union. He became ill with cancer and was sent to there for treatment. He died in Kurdistan on November 18, 1962.

O SIRIUS!

In the night, traveling memories like a nightly gentle breeze
Raise the feast of sorrow in my emotional soul;

The silent world is like a still and deep sea
On which my groan gushes burning melodies!

The curtain of darkness has fallen down in folds over the earth
Even I do not see a picture of the tears of wakefulness!...

The black whirlpool of despair swings around my heart,
Unless you come to help me Syrius, beaming star!

Perhaps you, Sirius, the smile of the lips of the dawn,
Perhaps you can alleviate the pains of the restless heart!

A gleam of your eye reaches my unlucky soul
It makes my heavy head intoxicated with comfort until the next night!

Then, magnificent star! beaming and shining Sirius,
When you rise, wash with your kiss-curl the weeping eyes of the night!

Translated by Farhad Shakely

A STAR'S STORY

At the evening: in the sky of sunset (west),
A star twinkles: bright and beautiful.
Its surroundings are a blue sea and alone
It stares at the evening on the world.
There is in its ray something of light-brown eyes,
And in its tremble the smile of rosy lips.
Like that flower a beautiful woman fixes on her locks,
Any eye that looks at it, does not become sated (replete) with ...
I am also one of those who watch it,
I admire this evening beauty;
On a hill I stand right opposite to it,
My drunken look becomes full of its smile!
It gets dark ... other stars one after another
They throw away their veils in the face of the world ...
But now, quietly, it slides (glides) downwards,
And reaches the edge dimly.
The thirsty lips of horizon suck it like a drop.
Oh, what a pity, setting's death kills it.
This star and its sad story
In what soul doesn't it awake dejection?

Translated by Farhad Shakely

THE POETRY OF CONSCIENCE

As much as I try, I can't fit the imagination with which I'm intoxicated
Into the frame of my poetry.
Analysis of my conscience and speech of my tongue,
Why are they so far from each other? I don't know.
I wished that the conscience would be open like a scroll,
So that the world that is more beautiful
Than spring would appear.
So that longing, hope and dreaming
Would be visible, more sparkling than the stars of the blue vault (sky)
So that the meaning of the sea's stillness would appear
When a soft wind touches its surface quietly.
So that would appear that world the poetry of which
Is tearless and weeps more than tears.
When the mirror of the face does smile
It shines with a ray that is brighter than the sun ...
But, what a pity that those poems,
Are birds that don't leave the nests.
They warble (twitter) and sing inside,
And never pass a pen over a paper.

Translated by Farhad Shakely

BEAUTY AND THE WOMAN

I have seen stars in the sky
I have gathered flowers in spring's garden
At nightfall trees have wet my face
I have seen dusk fall on many horizons
The rainbow after drenching rain
Is arched into the sun
The New Year's sun in March, May's and June's moon
Have come and gone in their days and nights
The stream's torment and silver foam
A thousand lights in their distances
Ripe red and yellow fruit of the garden
Birds' song and chatter in upland forest
Beautiful music has risen often
From throat of flute or from strings of violin
All this is wonder and beauty
Throwing its light on the way of existence
But nature without the smile of my love
Is all void of light
Is without tune when the wind
Bears not her voice to excite me;
What star, what wild rose is as red
As her cheeks, her nipples and lips;
What stain of blackness stills as in her eyes
Black as her lashes, brows or her loose hair?
What height as beautiful as she grown tall
What glow as light as in her eyes?
What yearning in a stayed and pent up heart
As magical as that of love.

Translated by Hanne Bramness

AZHDAHAK'S PRISON

Azhdahak! Your prison is a fortress
With walls of concrete and gates of steel.
Azhdahak! Your prison is on fire and the exits are closed
Men's chains weighted so that they are fixed where they are
Irons around men's hands and feet burning strength from their bodies

The place smells of your mind's venom
Your evil which devises new ways to punish any who think
Your hangmen and vigilantes are good at getting drunk
Drinking the bloods of prisoners

Azhdahak! Whose black spirit lives in terror of the thoughts of other
You feed men's brains to your snakes
Young lives in your chains and bound to their death
Are waiting their sudden and violent end
Wait on their hangings

Thoughts, energy, hope and longing
Strangled with their breath
Or rotting in chains

Azhdahak! Who never stops working
Feeding your infernal vipers with young brains

Sustaining their greed
With arrest, hanging and murder
Then one the blood unlawfully wasted
Ideas you thought to have stifled
Will burn in the furnace
Of Kawa's veins inciting fury

The sledge hammer bearers will rise
At once over their dead sons
And raze your prison
The your men who died behind walls
Will be pride of Kurdistan
Our people shall know their names and their deeds
They shall be cut on the plinth of the nation.

To the false gods of fascism 1953 Sulaimani