AL A'TABA
(The Threshold) |
* Dragon's Teeth (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)
* Ya Ali
The art of Hashim Al-Tawil
Hashim Al-Tawil is Professor of Art History at Henry Ford Community College, Michigan (USA). He completed his education in Iraq and in the USA, and worked in Iraq in the seventies and eighties on the faculty of the college of Fine arts, University of Baghdad, and was active in the Iraqi visual art and cultural scene. His research interests are directed towards history, art, and visual culture of the Arab world and Islam. As a visual artist, much of his work is derived from the subject of his research. His recent focus is on the hybridity of the Mediterranean culture in medieval time. He received a Fulbright senior research grant for 2007 in Italy, and a fellowship from Nantes Institute for Advanced Studies, France for 2011. Since the invasion of Iraq he has given tens of lectures and presentations on the destruction of Iraqi culture and more specifically in the area of the systematic and deliberate dismantling of Iraq's diverse and inclusive modern art landscape.
the greed of death
a poem by john bart gerald
what is stronger than the greed of death ?
who can resist its armies in the field ?
who buys off the terror of its acquisition ?
where are the iraqis haitians sudanese
peoples of rwanda congo, guatemala peru
coined for profit to the daily lives of strangers ?
how far is your distance from this pain ?
where does the greed come from
that denies another life for a moment's comfort ?
that burns a people for their birthright ?
that makes white of black and
those who have ?
taste of lemon
a hummingbird
a hungry child
mangoes in a crate
fifty slabs of cod
cans of tomato sauce like shell casings stacked high
a bag of rice
child's hand on first nourishment
given
but what is stronger than the greed of death ?
are the fields the peoples ?
is the
land - are the streets ?
are the halls of government ?
courts that serve strangers ?
the grey corridors of pain ?
people needing love puzzled by shame
generations bent to obscurity on a path of light
forced to repetition of no exit but
death the rule that claims everyone
who is stronger than the greed of death ?
je ne les laisse pas entrer l'oublie
it's never of the people this greed
people only ask for freedom
so many choosing together are freedom
what is stronger than the greed of death ?
we take on death piece by piece
and at the death of greed rejoice