24 July 2010

Imagery of the Iran-Iraq War




Touched and deranged,

downcast and sad;

with veilless face,

and no chador;

heedless of arrest,

careless of the Guards.

For eyes she has

two red grapes

fallen off the bunch.

She's mad,

stark staring mad;

she's lost,

lost to herself,

lost to the world.

A straw in the wind,

she's drifting around.

A graveless body,

she's deadened to the world.

Round her neck she has

a pair of teardrops, a curse:

of a dead soldier boots

with laces tied together.

"What's that?", I said.

"My son", she said,

"sitting on my shoulders



I have posted the painting and the poem before but never together. THe painting is by Minoo Emami. It is inspired by her husband's experience in the war. He was seriously injured fighting the Iraqis. One of his legs was amputated.

The poem is The Necklace by Simin Behbahani, the Lioness of Iran. The last time I posted the poem in 2008 one of the comments made was "Jesus, that was DARK!!". I agree, In my mind it is as powerful as any of the works of Wilfred Owen.

I wanted to see how these two powerful indictments of war went together. I think they work together, others may not of course!

8 comments:

James Higham said...

Savage.

Susan Demeter said...

Very powerful!

Claude said...

Deeply poignant.

Sean Jeating said...

Good idea, Jams. And: it works. Impressive. Thank you.

CherryPie said...

They work very well together.

susan said...

Oh yes, they do work well together.

nursemyra said...

Extremely moving Jams. What a juxtaposition

jams o donnell said...

Thanks. I'm glad you find them as poignant as I did