Mahnaz Badihian
MARCH 8th IN TEHRAN
2009
on March 8th in Tehran
women will rise
from strength and struggle
They'll remove their scarves
on rooftops chanting
"God is great”
as a metaphor for justice.
Many women
with jasmine in their hands
will go towards Evin prison
demonstrating against
unjust laws
Women will write poems
about March 8th
about lack of respect
by husband and brothers
about laws of heredity
But there are women also
who'll walk those streets
with lost memories,
their bodies covered in oblivion
and thick black chador
.....................................
GATHAS
Recycled woman arrives
with all seasons
with beauty of spring
Arrives with yellow
leaves in autumn
In the season of
freezing rain
She’s present
along dirt roads
along plains
in forgotten houses
between lines of “Gathas”*
across fire temples
mosques ,churches
She knows life
is like morning dew
Sitting on leaves
brief, fragile
She knows everywhere
from troubled roads
of Harlem
to green beauty
of Tamalpais
from blue domes in
city of Isfahan
to plains of Africa
There’s a need to gather
broken bones!
Ghatas are verses from holly book of Zoroastrians
Well it's March 8th, 2017 now, so I guess none of that happened...
We know what the consequences are for Iranian women who do not observe the dress code inside Iran. I wish Iranian women and men outside of Iran would march in the streets of the cities where they live and expose and condemn the female members of the European official delegates who wear headdresses while visiting Iran.
Ahhhhh.. the paradise of wihful thinking that is poetry...about things that are completely divorced from reality...
Any activity and any hint of struggle to promote Women's right in iran will be moot , so far as we are dealing with men and women who support the regime in iran whole-heartedly, yet pretend to be all for dismantling it.
With their strong and organized campaign against all things Anti-IRI, they will see to it that nothing changes in their "mother land" by focusing the attention on totally unrelated events.
Without a radical change, and not the superficial and baseless suggetions and advocacy for "grassroots involvement", Not a damn thing will happen.
So, as you can see, iranian people who do care, have got their work cut out for them. Time to do some real House -cleaning.
When pertinent and properly exploited, poetry can be a potent tool in promoting one's cause.
" " God is great" as metaphore for Justice"
Can not find a better example of delusionary thought amongst Iran's so called "reformists"