At eight this morning safe and sound I slept
While you from windows open, broken, fell to death. 

At eight this morning of tomorrow’s gentle joys I dreamt 
While the unbearable today you put to sleep—forever. 

At eight tonight, conscious, wide-awake I am, 
While now your brain and body rest for good. 

At eight tonight my friends and I discuss:
How and why and where we let you down. 

Maybe your shattered silence, unknown fellow-student, 
Will make us act upon the loneliness of others. 

Maybe your fall into this endless timelessness
Will help us seek all those who different are. 

Your final farewell from unsocial towers of seclusion:
Our welcome to your shy and isolated neighbors, brothers. 

To you, the friend we never knew:
AVE VALE—FARE THEE WELL—BEDROOD. 

NOTE on my first poem about Iran, written in England and published by the student paper at the University of Essex at Colchester, England, explaining the situation of the Iranian student who had committed suicide a few days before Nowrooz in March of 1977.
 
The heartache of loneliness
 
A 21-year-old Persian student from Tehran committed suicide here at the University of Essex by throwing himself out of the window of his room (10th floor of Eddington Tower) at around 8 o’clock in the morning on Thursday, March 18. He was a first-year student in computer science and he rarely met any people.
 
Most of us on campus are very shocked and many discussions have taken place on how one can break through the loneliness in which many students, especially foreign ones, find themselves.
 
Please find enclosed a short poem expressing the general feeling; the “final farewell from unsocial towers” should be our welcome to (the dead student’s) shy and isolated neighbors. We are sending it to his parents as a sign of hope and good-will.
 
We do care here at Essex.
 
Henrik Eger, Tawney Tower, University of Essex, Colchester
March 18, 1977

To the victims
 
Today I was driven through town
with an informer at the wheel:
without anything being said, I
constantly stared at strangers and
friends in the streets as if I could
read . . . .
and . . .
store . . . .
their . . . . .
thoughts . . . . . . .
 
Entering my home, alone . . . . .
I didn’t trust . . . . .
my own . . .
keys . . . .
any more, let alone . . . . .
the traffic . . . . . .
in . .
my . .
brain . . . . .

(written in Kerman, like most other poems below, immediately upon arriving at home, with a SAVAK agent who had offered to give me a ride to my house)

If you are interested in publishing or adapting this copyrighted poem by setting it to music, staging or filming it, etc., please contact the author. 

To those who prepared
the ground—underground--
and paid a terrible price
 
He had learnt not to trust
anybody,
except his pillow, maybe.
 
And yet, one night, he was
betrayed:
 
His head now needs
no pillow
any more.

If you are interested in publishing or adapting this copyrighted poem by setting it to music, staging or filming it, etc., please contact the author. ​​

To Ayatollah Khomeini
with apprehension
 
“Leave Western talk to Western folk
and listen, listen, listen
to what the East wind has to say!”
he decreed.
 
“But why,” I asked, “should we not
listen to the wind in both East and West
and then embrace each other
in discussion?”

If you are interested in publishing or adapting this copyrighted poem by setting it to music, staging or filming it, etc., please contact the author. ​​

To a Persian mother
and her sons abroad

When the umbilical cord
was cut, she felt
a tremor, deep inside
her brain: her loss, 
her gain, one day, 
again, her loss.

And then, after years
of nursing and 
of mothering, she re-
discovers tremors, 
fears of cuts and
emptiness-to-come:

her youngest son, her little boy, 
is leaving home
for good—a man, 
nevermore to return to
childhood and the dead 
of night. Never ever!

If you are interested in publishing or adapting this copyrighted poem by setting it to music, staging or filming it, etc., please contact the author. ​​

​IRAN!
She a mother, a sister, she. 
She a wife, a woman, she. 
She a daughter, orphan, she. 

IRAN!
She the desert, a village, she. 
An endless gulf, a city, she. 
She the field, an alley, she.

IRAN!
She the nomad and the teacher, 
she. She the worker, the nurse, 
the doctor, she. 

IRAN!
She the rice and she the tea. 
She the fruit, all carpets
and the oil. 

IRAN!
She the body, aching back
and aching limbs. She the brain, 
searching under labor pains. 

IRAN, IRAN!
She the veil and she the fist. 
She the hunger and the thirst
for freedom, she. 

IRAN, IRAN, IRAN!

This poem was written in Kerman during the Iranian Revolution in the Fall of 1978, when the universities already had closed because of the unrest and the boycott of universities by Iranian professors and students. 

In 1979-80, it was performed in (then) Bombay in front of large groups of Iranian and Indian students with a sitar player accompanying my reading these poems.  When I read "Iran, Iran, Iran!" I could no longer hold back tears, neither could the Iranian musician and most members in the audience. 

If you are interested in publishing or adapting this copyrighted poem by setting it to music, staging or filming it, etc., please contact the author. ​​