Oh Aleppo, The Mongols are Back

Oh Aleppo, the Mongols are Back

By Tarif Youssef agha

Oh Aleppo, the Mongols are back with fire,

While the whole world is dressed with disgrace and shame

It sticks its head in the sand once,

And once, it blames the our brave freedom fighters

Oh Aleppo, the world has sold to the modern-time Nero,

Instead of buying you safety

They wanted to burn you to teach others a lesson,

As they did before with other cities and areas

All what we wanted was freedom,

But every one wanted us behind bars and barbwires

They opened the doors of hell toward us

Because we rose up against their agent; the one with the military boot

They threatened him and warned him many times, but in fact,

We were meant to receive these threats and warnings

They turned a blind eye while he was burning us,

And while he was forcing us to flee from land to land

Oh Aleppo, this is the message of the world to us,

To surrender and to live silently, like stones

And to go back to the dictator’s barn,

To live like harmless domestic animals

Oh Aleppo, tell them they are dreaming,

As our people were mixed with dignity and persistence

They will shape their destiny by their hands,

They won’t let anyone shape it for them

***

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 April 29, 2016, Houston, Texas

The Assad regime, with the Russians, started an air attack against the city of Aleppo, trying to take it back from the opposition fighters, but also killing a lot of civilians, mostly children. The city was burned by Hulagu, the Mongol, in 1260, just like how Nero burned Rome in 64

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