One habit of the people of Damascus city is that when they hear a story that is hard to believe, they ask “what kind of flying alligators and elephants are these?”
ISIS Stormed Iraq after Syria
By Tarif Yoyssef-Agha
The (coffee shop) narrator said “Oh my noble listeners
ISIS stormed Iraq after Syria
ISIS occupied Al-Mussel and headed to Baghdad
And raised its flags over the oil wells
The tanks ran away in front of its horses
The jet-fighters were downed with its spears and arrows
It shelled with catapults and attacked with camels
And to communicate, it used the carrier pigeons
Thousands of soldiers fled from a few masked people
Every thing happened just like in a dream
Its accomplishments were called miracles
Commentators and writers didn’t know what to say
ISIS, then, declared the formation of the Caliph State
And that it’s Emir became the fearless Caliph
It sent a warning to the East and a warning to the West
And invited every brave horseman to recognize the new Caliph”
…
…
At this point, the narrator stopped;
It looked like he snoozed into dreams
His listeners woke him up
And asked him to complete the story
The man fixed his position on the seat then said
“The alligators flew over the people’s heads
The elephants soared into the outer space
And then, the mice and snakes lived together happily ever after”
***
A Poem translation
(Can be shared without permission)
Tarif Youssef-Agha
An Expatriate Arab Syrian Writer & Poet
Member of the ‘Syrian Revolutionary Writers Assembly’
Friday August 1, 2014, Houston, Texas
http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry