Coup d'Etat
I’m comfortable with your confronting me
hurling, albeit politely, the epic query
haunting your ‘tolerance’ and a fever
to my soul. It’s frankly a relief
decoding the cryptic cause of my exile
in the context of considering your phobia. So
here, the facts: boys of my generation
marching in front of our tanks to eat into
the landmines. Women not unlike my mother
buried neck-deep for transgression
before having their heads smashed with rocks.
Your tongue has already tried obfuscations
avoiding the ‘sensitive’ appellation; I put
our minds at (some) ease by offering the term
‘Muslim’, and using direct monosyllables
to terminate the confluence of innuendo:
“What went wrong?” I briefly catalogue
the points of my suppressed pride: Persian
poets, those geniuses; Islamic civilisation
an absolute paragon of the Middle Ages. ‘We’
achieved so much: algebra, alchemy, Alhambra
Aviccena, Omar Khayam, Rumi and Andalusia
and now beheaded journalists, banished feminists
persecuted writers and pulverised regimes. What
did go wrong? You don’t require my noting
British divide-and-conquer, Russian missiles
US uranium-depleted and cluster bombs; and let’s
please avoid Israel. So I propose a date: 19 August
1953; and the place, Tehran. The event
the calculated abortion of the incipient democracy
of my native land. You know about
the coup that crushed our future, engineered
by the CIA with the mullahs’ collusion
and our king’s utter complicity? You’re right
[...] Read more
poem by Ali Alizadeh
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