A Message to Tehran

A Message to Tehran

By Tarif Youssef-Agha

If you plan to visit Tehran (the capital of Iran)

Would you please deliver a message from me to its rulers?

Who ever told you that occupying Syria is easy, he

Must be living in pure imagination

Or must be intending to hurt you

By sending you where you will get killed

As in Syria, there are people who are so hard

When they are bored, they entertain themselves by flattening mountains

While in the time of war,

They keep delivering the cups of death to their enemy until they drop

If they were told that their victory is ‘impossible’

They would open their dictionary and not find the ‘word’

If you listen to them, all that you hear is roaring

And if you watch them, all that you see is people riding lions as horses

If you come to them with your swords of aggression

Then you must be unaware of the sharpness of their swords

Don’t be so happy to have a footstep on our Homeland

As our people have seen all kinds of invaders like you before

And have seen many kinds of allies like those of yours

Like those rabies herds, and those thugs and gangsters

The longer you stay in our country

The more ropes you tighten around your necks

You won’t find anything but guns and canons waiting for you

You won’t find anything but garbage bags for your coffins

You will find the grandsons of Hanano, Sultan and Youssef (Syrian heroes)

Paving the land under your feet with blades

You will find waiting for you the kind of men you never encountered before

The kind of men who aren’t scared of wrestling even wild beasts

You will find infants who play with serpents’ heads

And who become professional warriors before they stop breast-feeding

You will also find women from the granddaughters of Khaula (a female Arab history hero) who,

If they raise their swords up, they cover the earth with shade

Haven’t you had enough from Daraa and Aleppo? (Syrian cities)

Where you were defeated in the South and in the North

These are people who resided and are still there for thousands of years

Whereas all their invaders have been gone

So if you plan to visit Tehran

Don’t forget to pass on this message on my behalf

***

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 Marc 28, 2015, Houston, Texas

http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry