Persian Springtime

No one said it was easy to live here
in a forsaken country,
but it is so easy to die here.
I do not mean dying
like in Iran in the springtime
where the women go out and dance
in the night wind, their sorrow expressed
in the Persian way.
I mean here among streets with gourmet foods,
endless stores with clothes
fit for a Persian king to throw away
with the flick of his wrist,
a slight smile across his quiet mouth.
Here in America, people come and go.
The regime’s sycophants approach the tyrant
tangling themselves up in boastful words,
his words and their words—
broken imperial wings fluttering
in the windless sky.

It is early march in Tehran.
War, for the modern Persians,
is an illumination
of their past,
of what once was and what will be,
as in their ancient history
when they slaughtered Roman soldiers
at the Battle of Edessa.
As did the ancient Persian warriors,
The brave Iranians will face their foe.

Who knows when the war will end?
The moths come flying through the kitchens.
Spring shudders with disbelief,
and summer takes her place to slumber
by the open doorways.
The tyrant with his usual arrogance
toasts ambassadors who come as supplicants
from across the earth.
With a slavish smile on his face,
he speaks of democracy and freedom.

II

Sheets of ice are gone except in the veins
of those who run the country,
platitudes coming out of their mouths
like bellowing clouds,
gracing the old skyline of America.
Angels look down upon those
who ravaged the earth with their LUCAS drones,
“kamikaze” drones searching for the illusive
Republican Guard forces.
The impulsive president gloats
like a well-fed pig.

We will mourn for our dead without language
without end.
One day,
we will hear a great lament
near the port where ships come in.
For our tyrant
shall burn the forests down,
sirens will wail and the monsters will come out,
not out of heaven, but here
where the grass moves with the wind.
Missiles will fly into the skies,
mass murder
as Bruegel’s creation of hell becomes
a reality for us.

We will descend into a fiery victory.
At dawn, we seek not a lasting peace,
but a peace with wind and bells clanging,
then dying down into a quiet repose
after the destruction
of this new Hitlerian age.

 

Luis Lázaro Tijerina is a military historian and military theorist. He is a published author. Mr. Tijerina admit that he writes poetry and paints easel works as an outlet for the more intense work that he does from a professional position.