2 beautiful poems by a young Iranian lady:

Somewhere

Somewhere in Iran,

a father sobs

through bomb-shattered nights

hunger drains the blood of children

Somewhere we eat the sputum of our pride

when we know nothing and blunder

Somewhere in Iran,

a woman sees her sick man

teeter on the edge of midnight

and turn his back to her and all forever

Somewhere in this society we lost our heads

amid the malls and benzes and pre-med degrees and fake noses

showing and competing ignorant minds

Somewhere in Iran,

a mother awaits her man, her son

in chains of an oppressor

or waits for those who never return from war

and still endures we know not How

And yet amid the smoking debris

of a fear-driven world

while you juggle in a cubicle from 9-5

or roam around your parent's cash

Somewhere in Iran,

a woman gives the world an artist:

a child who dances and paints

dreams and weaves a poem around the universe

plunging down the womb

to fire a cell

sinking down a borehole

to probe the spring of life

from where the earth will rise

and meet the sky

Somewhere in ancient Persia, it is told

a man made a song

out of the wailing of a dove

a song that moved all animals

to rise and kill the serpent

who ate the bird's young ones

To know our sorrow

is to know our joy--

Somewhere in the future

a Persian mother will rejoice.

Tell Me News

Tell me of a mother in Ghome
who hanged herself in her room
with a blanket
was she punch drunk?

Tell me of a student in Tehran
who flung himself to death
from the tenth floor of a building
did his grip fumble with the loneliness up there?

Tell me of a hooded man in Mashad's streets
who picked out others of his own blood on a parade
was his skin beginning 
to turn with soltitude?

Tell me of a girl who wore red lipstick
and returned home pregnant
from a prison cell
has she been charged under the Immortality Act?

Tell me of a journalist
who hanged himself in jail
with a piece of his torn pair of jeans
was he hiding a pair of scissors in the cell?

Tell me my native land
has the gruesome sight 
of a mangled corpse
not begun to sit on your conscience?

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