poetry by sabheer haka

translated by nasrin parvaz and hubert moore

The embitterer

I’ll never be able  to endure life like my father he feared god and cried for his sins but I wanted to kill god  since I felt my mother’s absence and learned life and death is in his hands to kill doesn’t need bravery, it needs a reason

A red folder, two photos, a copy of a birth certificate

To become a worker you don’t need  a qualification, a driving licence or a military card you don’t have to worry no one will investigate you no one will care about your religion doesn’t matter if you tell lies or you’ve killed someone! It only needs a bit of integrity that a would-be president lacks.

Sabeer Haka is a construction worker. Two of his collections of poetry have been published in Iran, and in 2013 he won first prize in the Iranian Workers’ Poetry Competition. Sabeer’s work has brought him little in the way of financial reward and, with no support from Social Security, he knows poverty from the inside. ”I’m tired,” he says in an interview, “I’m very tired. My tiredness goes back to before my birth. I was a worker since my mother carried me in her womb while working, and I felt her exhaustion. Still, her tiredness is in my body.”