Oh ‘Ballot Boxes’, will you forgive us?
After a comedian Presidential election in Syria, Bachar Assad claimed two days ago that he won a third term with about 90% of the vote.
Oh ‘Ballot Boxes’, will you forgive us?
By Tarif Youssef-Agha
Oh ‘Ballot Boxes’, will you forgive us?
We faked you and we shamed you
We made you bring Presidents from graves
Or send minors to the presidential palaces
Or send those who believed they were gods
And they had the authority to take souls
In other countries, you brought gang leaders
The least which can be said in their description ‘Criminals’
Every butcher from them keeps you as a hostage
Every thief from them uses you as a ship to reach his goal
Some of them even are so vulgar as to make you
Boxes to elect them presidents for life
They have no shame for the counting results they announce
They always look proud claiming ‘Ninety Nine’ percent of the vote
They filled some of the ‘Ballot Boxes’ with votes of dead people
Even dead people in our countries became voters
The most recent thing they invented was to opened the door of candidacy
They put ‘Clowns’ on the list as the president’s rivals
I don’t know whether they paid them to do so, or they forced them
In order to legitimize the election for the ‘beloved leader’
They made our countries examples of disasters
They starved the people and robed the treasury
Oh ‘Ballot Boxes’, wait, we didn’t forget you
Our revolution came to restore your honor
Our revolution came to free you
To rescue you from the kidnapers’ hand
To return fairness to you
And to save you from the cruelty of the thugs
And you, our Homeland, be patient
The people don’t have to live in fear and sadness anymore
The revolution will not calm down before restoring our dignity in full
As it swore to do
***
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 June 6, 2014, Houston, Texas
http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry