Listen to Majid Naficy reading these poems in Persian
Mosaddegh at the Hague
If you go to the Netherlands
Visit The Hague court of Justice.
On a rainy night
Linger at its closed gate
And look through the iron rods:
There, in that lighted building
Across the rain-laden trees,
An old man stood
More than half a century ago.
He came from our homeland
To speak out against the oil cartels
Before the whole world.
He did not hold anyone hostage
And took only a few steps
To reach the podium.
Listen, listen
Even years after that bloody August (1)
One can still hear his voice.
He speaks in beautiful French:
“Mesdames et Messieurs!
Ladies and Gentlemen!”
September 24, 2005
1. On August 19, 1953 Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882-1967), the democratically-elected Iranian Prime Minister, was overthrown in a coup d’etat orchestrated by the American and British intelligence services, in collaboration with Kashani, a fundamentalist clergy and Zahedi, a Nazi-sympathizer general. They gave absolute power to the Shah who had fled the country a few days earlier. In 1951, Mosaddegh led the movement for nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which was under the control of the British. In June 1952, he traveled to the Hague to defend Iran’s case in the International Court of Justice.
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I Do Not Want You, Petroleum
This poem was first published in Persian in Sorrow of the Border (anduh-e marz) San Diego, 1989, and then in English in Muddy Shoes Beyond Baroque Books, 1999, as well as Poets Against the War edited by Sam Hamill Nation Books 2003.
I don’t want you, petroleum!
For a long time,
I thought that you burnt for me.
Now I see that I am burning for you.
I’m not saying that it’s not pleasant
Sitting near a kerosine heater
And enjoying the falling snow.
Or listening to the working water pumps
In an empty plain.
And yet, I cannot believe you,
Seven-headed dragon!
Fire still spews forth from your mouth
To the soul of my homeland.
In your school I learned servitude,
So that the khan of the tribe
Could send his son to London.
The Imperial Army in Mohammara
Forced me to abandon
The dream of a “House of Justice”.
On the street my blood was shed,
It turned into ink
For the pens which wrote
The new contracts of slavery.
The grand gates of falsehood
Opened with your keys.
Today the promised Messiah rides
On you, donkey of the Antichrist.
You raised this state to the heavenly throne
And polished its boots to a sheen.
You raised its seven-headed club
And whenever I tried to pull it down
You reinforced its shaky body
With your sturdy beams.
No! I don’t want!
I don’t want you, petroleum!
Oh, bloody stream!
For a long time,
I thought you gave me blood.
Now I see, you made me bleed.
May 18, 1987
