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