A Message from a Syrian to the World Rulers
By Tarif Youssef-Agha
Oh World rulers, I have a message for you
Do you know that most of you are the junk of humans?
If you don’t have tongues you use to talk,
Then I would think that you are a kind of garbage
And those of you who are supposed to be in the leadership are
In particular the lowest of you
Forgive me if I call you pimps instead of leaders (The Arabic pronunciation of both words are close)
As titles get mixed up when talking about thugs
We have had enough promises, illusions and dreams
We like your talks, but we get disappointed when we see your acts
When a whole nation is massacred while you are watching
Then you are, no doubt, partners in the crime
You shed crocodiles’ tears for us
But, meanwhile, you prepare the daggers for our backs
It would be unfair to the pigs to say that you resemble them
And Satan will be angry if I used him as an example to you
If I was asked to count some of your characteristics
Then I would say that when I look at you, I only see cowards and frauds
And if I was asked to put you where you belong
Then I would say that you don’t deserve to be more than an anklet in a belly dancer’s ankle
How come you attack the tail of terror and leave the head alone?
If you don’t know where the terror is by now, then you really are mules
Didn’t you see how the bucket was loading human remains in the trucks?
And the chemical weapons were suffocating the children?
Didn’t you see how the people were burned alive?
And the explosive barrels were separating the human bodies into pieces?
Every one of you who saw that and turned a blind eye
Deserves to be handcuffed as a criminal
Those who protect the butchers deserve, like them,
To have ropes tightened around their necks
If you have an atom of conscience, then you should commit suicide
As you also drank our blood until you got drunken
I haven’t seen your faces even once without wishing that
I spit at you or I rain you with shoes until you get sunk
Let me tell you that the acts of evil return to the one who did it
As what goes around, comes around
And the one who believes that the interest is not outweighed by mercy,
Then he should know that life keeps rotating; it never stays still
Therefore, he may be the one who faces the killing tomorrow
His silence today may turn tomorrow to be his killer
You turn Syria today into a slaughter house for humans
Our people are slaughtered on the altar of greed and foolishness
Your untold dirty agendas, with which you always stabbed us,
Turned our beautiful and flourishing Homeland into ruins
And, in order not to make you feel bad, I will not exclude the Arab leaders from you
So their Excellencies, Hines and Majesties are included
All of you are of the same category
The category of those who hate the honor and adore the mud
Your crime will always be a shame on your forehead, not erasable
Even if you spend the rest of your life washing it in all the seas of the world
***
A Poem translation
(Can be shared without permission)
By Tarif Youssef-Agha
An Expatriate Arab Syrian Writer & Poet
Member of the ‘Syrian Revolutionary Writers Assembly’
Friday December 19, 2014, Houston, Texas
http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry