Baghdad 2003

The poet lifted his pen to touch the paper, but his tears kept falling, and the ink kept running 
towards him like advancing men.
And soon they were in his house, ransacking cupboards and drawers, kicking the doors in, 
raping his wife in the corner, looking for something he had, but they did not.
What are words, he said, what are they, I have forgotten? I had them last on a chair in my 
mother’s garden under the fig tree when there were no soldiers with guns on their shoulders 
outside the ruins of the university, and my neighbour had not been shot for lighting a cigarette 
on his balcony, and my son had two legs to walk tall on.
What are words, he said, what are they? I don’t remember what they are and how to lay them 
end to end to measure this.
The poet lifted his pen to touch the paper, but his tears kept falling and the ink kept running 
towards him like advancing men.
The musician lifted his hands to strike the keyboard, but his hands were broken and the notes 
kept marching towards him in a nameless line.
And soon they were marching on the Institute of Music and smashing the instruments, the 
tablas and djoozas, the violins and the santurs, the pianos and the harps and burning the music, 
of the maqams and the symphonies and sonatas, the records and the history for no reason 
under the sun.
What are notes, he said, what are they, I have forgotten? I played them last on a tinny school 
piano with my daughter’s index finger, the notes of O Finlandia, ‘a song of peace for lands afar 
and mine’.
What are notes he said what are they? I don’t remember how they sound or how they join 
together in a song.
The musician lifted his hands to strike the keyboard, but his hands were broken and the notes 
kept marching towards him in a nameless line.