We The People

We the People

By Tarif Youssef Agha

We the People, we will never miss the Path of History,

We are immortal, but you, oh Rulers, are down to dirt

Do what you want, still we stay and you leave,

Even if you sow our bones or dissolve us with acid

If you torture us or you slice our bodies while we are alive,

Or if you slaughter us by slashing the throat

If you gas us with chemicals or bomb us with barrels,

Or steal the smile from the faces of our children

If you fill your cells with millions of us,

Or chain our ankles with iron

If you demolish all the cities over our heads,

And make every one of us homeless

If you kill a thousand of us, we return by thousands,

As a Phoenix, every time we are burned to ashes, we are resurrected

Every Ruler of you will end in a grave,

But we will continue to live as survival is what we do best

We are the People and beauty is one of our characteristics,

But you, Rulers, have a long history with ugliness

Liars by nature, criminals by profession,

You were and you will always be slaves to lie and crime

The dumpers of History are always waiting for you,

Every time they are stuffed with you, they ask for more

***

A Poem Translation

By Tarif Youssef Agha

Sunday December 16, 2018.

Houston, Texas