There is a story that he once explained it by drawing comparisons between his relationship with Iraq and the story of Prometheus. "Of course," Al-Bayati said, "my relations with Iraqi governments were never conciliatory. I belong to the Iraqi people. I cannot separate myself from the people." He died in exile, apparently without any previously diagnosed illness, in Damascus on August 3, 1999. Al-Bayati as a Refugee Due to his revolutionary ideas and advocacy for oppressed people, Abdul Wahab Al Bayati spent more than half of his life in exile. This gives a bitter flavor even to his love poetry. Following is from his The Impossible: With dawn it comes or does not come, My love that took to stony silence, Round the walls it goes, begging, Torn by talons of death whenever Out of the death and gnawed by despair It shouts: O you, creature you! The Ship of Fate moved on, Sinbad of the Wind never came, How was it you came when our wells Are poisoned, where can you have come from? Did we meet before I came to be?" With total despair, he speaks about the tormenting pain of exile. Following is his poem entitled Why Are We in Exile the Refugees Ask (translated from Arabic by Abdullah Al-Udhari): Why do we die? In silence And I had a house And I had …. And here you are Without a heart without a voice Waiting, and here you are Why are we in exile? We die We die in silence Why are we not crying? On fire, On thorns We walked And my people walked Why are we Lord? Without a country, without love We die We die in terror Why are we in exile? Why are we lord? The Sufi and Leftist Inspirations Al-Bayati has intensively been influenced by the Middle Eastern Sufi figures for their visionary values and passionate love. He was fascinated by the love of Satan for God elaborated by some Sufi masters like Imam Ahmad A-Ghazali. This is an unconditional love in which the lover approaches his beloved as par excellence and cannot see any rival for Him. On example is a poem by Al-Bayati entitled A’isha's Mad Lover in his book, Love Poems on the Seven Gates of the World (1971): “In this context Al-Bayati’s poetry becomes Sufi in default, since he assumes the position as a modernist whose aspirations