They asked me what the Pen could do to the Revolution.
By Tarif Youssef Agha
They asked me what the pen could do to the revolution,
I said ‘it comforts when the pain overcomes,
It fuels the spirit in the hearts of the fighters,
And raises a new flag for them every time they lose one
It lights up their path every time the darkness rises above,
Cheers them up and sharpens their will
It exposes the dictators, the tyrants and the traitors,
And defends only those who were oppressed
If it opens fire on oppressors,
They are doomed
In every word it fires at them, there is a bullet,
With every bullet, an idol will tremble
In every cartoon it throws at them, there is a grenade,
It shakes the thrones on which they sit
Each one of them who portrays himself as a giant,
It takes one single cartoon to show how little he is
And each one of them who dresses himself as god,
It takes one single poem to bring his head under the foot
One single poem can make him a laughing material,
He who used to think that the people are his servants
Both, the free poet and cartoonist, have a pen like a volcano,
A pen that throws lava at the oppressors
How many poets and cartoonists challenged injustice?
And managed to break the backbone of it?
If the bullets are the fuel of the guns,
Then, the ink is the fuel of the revolution against the dictators
So, if they ask you about the free pen, then say
‘It is the one that all dictators insist to burn’
It, also, documents the events to those who read History,
If people would read, they would never be sorry
***
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 January 22, 2016, Houston, Texas
http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry