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  Hossein Mostafavi Kashani  
   
 
     
     

You See No One , You Hear No One

                 to George Bush

You are the president of America!
You are an important person,
So important TV shows you every night.

You hold the microphone
and you talk important words,
so important even Satan listens with a gaping mouth.

Only the flies don't take you very seriously,
and while you talk
they are busy with their usual work.

They search for dirty, stinking things
and they rub their hands together
while saliva drips from their mouths.

Flies don't have a president
but some of them are very important,
so important TV shows them every night.

They don't have a microphone, and unlike you
they are not all dressed up,
making speeches,

but with dirty hands and legs they move on Afghani
children's lips and eyes, the same children on whom
you drop bombs and then send them food parcels.

How long has it been since you saw a fly?
How many years has it been since you read a poem?
Would you recognize the breeze if it passed you by?

Just think! When you were a child, like all other children,
you saw a fresh rose whenever you looked in the mirror.
But now you see an important person who will die one day
even if he is president of America.

If you were to ask your heart ,
it would say it doesn't want to beat in your breast
and be the runway for all those planes that bombard cities.

For ,God has created the heart only for love.
So have pity on your heart
even if you can't pity anyone else.

It is an apple that will burst one day and suddenly
you will find yourself standing before the gate of paradise,
begging the shreds of your heart from every person you killed.

But no one sees you, no one hears you.

 

     
     
     
 
   
     
 
 
       
  Copyright © 2008 Pemmican Press and the author/artist represented.