My friend who raised his hands in protest

Khodr Hassan Khalaf comes out, the calm poet with the soft voice, about what he was accustomed to in his entire poetic experience, directing his speech to the human in each of us, awakening his alertness, looking forward to the dream with a new dawn, and that is the story of the collection, as he wanted it to be in his latest works, leaving the self and blending with the objective of ideas, concerns, and aspirations. From here, the event—political and social—has a tangible reference presence and a clear impact in guiding the experience toward its goals, near and far. Indeed, the poem strives to cross the facts to reach their meanings, to transcend the present to grasp what is between truth and illusion of a life metaphor and poetic metaphor, so that Khodr's speech is, by this, a tender wave and an overwhelming call to the friend who raised his hands in protest: life resists breaking, my friend! That is his last testament to his friend and himself, for there is nothing closer than the self as a friend, as in Aristotle's phrase "The friend is a human being—you are, except that he is not you in person," or Abu Hayyan Al-Tawhidi's phrase, "The friend is another you," for a dream that grows in memory, glowing in our silence. The poem strives to renew itself at the threshold of the dream, in the absence of the poet and in his shadowy presence.