4. The Eyes of Corona
Poetic Prose
Anwer Ghani
Arcs Publishing House
Iraq 2020
5. 1
Contents
Contents ............................................................ 1
Preface .............................................................. 2
Chapter 1: The Grandfather and Corona eyes..... 3
Chapter 2: The Euphrates and Corona eyes. ....... 6
Chapter 3: The Physician and Corona eyes. ........ 9
Chapter 4: The Nurses and Corona eyes. .......... 12
Chapter 5: The City and Corona Eyes............... 15
Chapter 6: The Streets and Eyes of Corona....... 18
Chapter 7: The Windows and Eyes of Corona. .. 21
Chapter 8: The Students and Corona Eyes........ 24
Chapter 9: The Lovers and Corona Eyes........... 27
Chapter 10: The Lesson and Eyes of Corona. .... 30
The End........................................................... 33
The Author...................................................... 34
6. 2
Preface
Corona's eyes are blind, so it does not want
the students' eyes to see the light. It closed
schools and filled their hearts with fear. It
is Corona's blind eyes.
Anwer Ghani
Here are words and lines by me; Anwer
Ghani, a physician and poet from Iraq. I
wrote it freely, far from techniques, but
rather wrote it fluently and with poetic
prose that mixes with imagination and
reality, in order to record my observations
and document what I saw and felt in the
Corona pandemic that afflicted the world
in 2020. I relied on documenting what I
saw and what I felt with some poetic
expression. I hope you like it and see what
we went through and what we felt of dread
and fear.
7. 3
Chapter 1: The Grandfather and
Corona eyes.
I did not speak to the sun but my
grandfather spoke to it and it sat there with
them in that garden. My grandfather said
that the eyes of the sun are bright, beautiful
and tender, not crazy. My grandfather did
not see the eyes of Corona, but I saw the
eyes of Corona, it is crazy, spiteful and
murderous. A witch takes lightning spirits.
My heart is now crowded with pain.
Oh my God. If my grandfather saw the eyes
of Corona, I am sure that he would take his
scythe and stand in the first row in order to
expel it from this earth.
My grandfather loves his land and does not
accept that the killer eyes of Corona remain
in it.
8. 4
I am very proud of my grandfather and I
always remember his stories, and now I
have many stories to tell him, I mean the
stories of Corona and its killer eyes and
other things.
10. 6
Chapter 2: The Euphrates and Corona
eyes.
I am a farmer from the south; the south of
Iraq and the moon here bathes every night
in the Euphrates. The moon is white and
pure, as you know, but, Corona is neither
pure nor white, because it does not bathe in
the Euphrates, it bathes in people's blood.
You can imagine the dread in my heart
when I saw those hundreds falling. They do
not fall in the Euphrates, but rather in the
death pits due to Corona.
If Corona had learned to bathe in the
Euphrates, it would be kind, tender and
pure, like the moon, like my beautiful
popular.
Our ancestors say that the Euphrates is a
sacred river, and that it washes rusty hearts.
Moreover, that he goes out every day in
front of the gates of Babylon, to shrink the
city. I know that the Euphrates will regress
my city from the crazy Corona.
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Yes, Corona is fatal and frightening, but it
will not frighten the Euphrates, nor will it
make its eyes blink. The affectionate eyes
of the Euphrates will overcome Corona's
dark eyes.
13. 9
Chapter 3: The Physician and Corona
eyes.
I am a doctor from Iraq; from the south,
where the palms are medicine and the
Euphrates is a cure, but on a dark night, the
crazy Corona attacked us, and it took lives.
The hospital started crying and the
corridors crying, and everything became
afraid. Moreover, I was afraid and my
friends were afraid. Oh, my colleagues,
how many of them have fallen dead,
martyr. How many of them have contracted
the disease, but we are doctors and our job
is to fight Corona and keep it away from
people.
I am a doctor and I have committed to that,
and we have very much saved many lives.
Despite the losses, we are here proud of
what we have done.
We doctors feel sadness and pain, and we
are trying to do our duty to save people
from the deadly Corona. We did everything
we could and everything possible, and we
14. 10
stayed up for the nights and days, and felt
real stress, but this does not mean anything
in front of saving souls. Corona was a hard
lesson.
16. 12
Chapter 4: The Nurses and Corona
eyes.
The hospital is a big white dove, smiling in
the patient’s face and caressing the child as
affectionate mother, and in the middle of it
finds the nurse who bored and not
complained, and gave love to everyone.
The nurse has dazzled me since the first
day I saw her, it is a different thing, a
different being.
Imagine this tremendous amount of
sympathy and Corona will have what you
will do, that she will be an honest guard and
a great fighter.
Yes, the nurses are great fighters; they kept
up the nights and worked hard during the
days to save the lives of the sick. Their eyes
cried a lot for those who died, but their
hearts were always beating, hoping that
everyone would be cured.
17. 13
If the eyes of Corona had seen the nurses'
eyes, they would be ashamed and Corona
will inevitably announce itself as the loser,
as for the kindness and tenderness of the
nurses.
19. 15
Chapter 5: The City and Corona Eyes.
Here we are in Hilla; the small city in Iraq,
where palm trees and super simplicity are
in everything, but in 2020 Corona visited
us as a frightening and terrifying
delegation, so the city became silent as a
dead man without movement.
Children, women, elders and youth are all
moving away from gatherings. The city
became without gatherings; it was empty,
dead, and Corona looked with its bright
eyes at this terrifying lethargy.
My city has many mosques and holy
shrines become empty. Universities have
been empty, schools, markets are empty,
ancient cities are empty, book fairs are
empty, and tourist areas are empty.
My city is empty; it has become a ghost
town. Yes, the city has become a ghost
town, and the panic that haunted it is
unimaginable. Everything here is silent and
20. 16
empty. Something strange and you who
read from the coming generations, you
could not imagine the size of the tragedy. It
is horrible. I hope you do not go through it.
22. 18
Chapter 6: The Streets and Eyes of
Corona.
When great Corona are walking, does not
want anyone to share the road, so the
streets are empty. If you saw the streets of
my city and other big cities such as Paris
and Rome, you would be filled with horror.
Corona has evacuated the streets, yes, by
order of the great Corona; the streets have
been evacuated, becoming a mirage, waste
and a forgotten memory.
You cannot imagine terrifying palpitations
of our hearts, yes you cannot imagine.
When you see crowded streets are
completely empty, for days or weeks, it is
a horrific and strange thing; Very strange.
There are no pedestrians in the streets, no
dogs, no birds, no lights or no sounds; it is
an utter calm and a killer silence.
23. 19
You do not see street vendors and you do
not see taxi drivers, the vegetable seller, or
the bread ovens. The streets in the era of
Corona have become completely dead and
empty without hope, like the sick person
who was lost.
25. 21
Chapter 7: The Windows and Eyes of
Corona.
I will stay alone here, behind the windows
and behind the curtain. Yes, I will stay
alone without you because I finally knew
how pain is. In addition, how love is? I
finally knew how fatal it is the moment of
the last separation.
This is not my eyes that cry, but my heart,
and these tears are the story of longing and
fear. No, I do not cry, I just say goodbye to
you. This is not my tears, and these are not
my eyes, but the eyes of Corona.
It is a great Corona; kills me slowly and
robs my soul coldly. It reminds me of the
cold hands; the very cold that stole my
fields and our young people who fell on the
sidewalk like the rest of the dream. No, I
do not cry; I just say goodbye to my
smiling spirit.
26. 22
Corona by a small sign separated us,
because I am behind my windows and you
are behind your window unable to
approach each other.
28. 24
Chapter 8: The Students and Corona
Eyes.
Here in Iraq, all the students have a great
obsession to becoming doctors. Of course,
this is encouraging, but it is not without
dimensions that need to be contemplated.
Then imagine how these aspirants can
remain without school.
Corona closed schools, and the evil hands
do not want science to continue in Iraq.
Imagine Iraqi minds, if given the chance,
what would happen? They will color the
moon and fill the world with poetry. Iraqi
students are poets and artists, so Corona
closed their schools because it feared love,
feared poetry, and feared science.
Corona from the world of ignorant and
does not want people to have insight. It is
dark, murderous and strange, and it
appeared to us because of the lies that filled
the world, because of the darkness that
filled the world, and because of the
ignorance that filled the world. Corona is
29. 25
the daughter of ignorance, so it closes
schools. Corona's eyes are blind, so it does
not want the students' eyes to see the light.
It closed schools and filled their hearts with
fear. It is Corona's blind eyes.
31. 27
Chapter 9: The Lovers and Corona
Eyes
Loving hearts cannot bear distance and
separation, but Corona forced the lovers to
separate. They do not meet and their hearts
are sad.
The lovers see the loved ones go, and they
see the death reaping the soul, and yet they
suffer for separation and remoteness.
Corona reaps everything and takes
everything, but the lovers are adept at
making beautiful tomorrow. Lovers are
skilled at making hope and despite the
falling oil prices, the lovers are not
depressed and they have enough energy to
rise, and they see how trade is disrupted,
but the lovers do not despair and they have
love to fill their hunger and warm their
bodies.
32. 28
The lovers see everything collapsing, but
they are adept at making hope, building a
house and cultivating a field despite all this
strange emptiness.
Lovers behind windows and screens spread
great love that does not know death despite
the eyes of Corona.
34. 30
Chapter 10: The Lesson and Eyes of
Corona.
I will sing my sorrow; that the crazy
Corona told me everything and taught me
the game of silent life. I am learning
because I am a good student sitting behind
a tightly closed door without sharp eyes
and without hard heart. The message is
scary, and I cannot stand all this longing. I
am learning the song; my eyes will never
fall again and my hands will not be noisy.
This is a pledge and a celebration.
I will go to the far market in search of my
start. As an old lover, I will repeat every
absent dream that fades before evening on
the foliage.
Oh crazy Corona, your eyes kill every
smile and teach us how to be silent. I will
tell my story for many generations, and like
a bitter rain, I will slowly fade, and I will
stand wet in the middle of the road hoping
for your coming.
35. 31
Corona, you are an unforgettable lesson, all
this fear, emptiness, death, loved ones,
remoteness and paralysis, it is something
that calls for strange and more searching
for you
38. 34
The Author
Anwer Ghani is an award-winning Iraqi
poet and Pushcart nominee. He was born in
1973 in Babylon and he is a religious
scholar, consultant nephrologist and author
of more than a hundred books; thirty of
them are in English like; "A Farmers
Chant"; Inner Child Press 2019, and
"Warm Moments", Just Fiction, 2020.
Anwer is the editor in chief of Arcs Prose
Poetry magazine.
