Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Ezzat Goushegir
54 years old
Ezzat Goushegir, an Iranian playwright, writer and poet, is the author of four books in Farsi. Her play "Medea Was Born in Fallujah" was recently published in Witness.
War
WAR By: Ezzat Goushegir
These are not drops of rain falling from the sky, This is fire, scraps of metal raining down These are not dandelions, or butterflies circling in the air These are children’s torn clothes Strands of hair floating in the air
There are tall palm trees in the Middle East The trees have now been decapitated The men in the south are strong Now their skulls rest on broken telegraph polls Like scarecrows in a barren field
The women of the south are brave Now you must look for their torn limbs On the mounds of the scorched bricks of dilapidated homes
What is this on the earth, in the air and water? Raw, bloody scraps of meat?
Tortured
Tortured By Ezzat Goushegir Translated by Mansour Bonakdarian
When vigilance fled my being, I saw in the mirror Two serpents sprouting from my shoulders And I saw that I had been pregnant for centuries So pregnant, that the garb covering my body had burst to shreds. Giving birth each dawn; The black serpents devouring the tender skulls of my new-borns And at dusk I become pregnant again.
When vigilance fled my being I saw that I was void of clouds I saw that I was decomposing like the heart of a corps. I saw that the mirror was void of my reflection And I anticipate nothing, And nothing shall occur…
