in Tehran sipping tea

all the sad dead

in Tehran sipping tea

remember the CIA

oiling the gears in 1953

when life was hard

and wine was cheap,

stealthy on the street,

digging the knife in deep,

slipping into shadows

concealing their eyes,

employing the language

of powerful lies.

Prime Minister Mosaddegh

was sent to his house

by the crafty Shah

to live like a caged mouse.

and now,

no one knows

about the disappearance of

the fragrant scent from the Iranian rose!

noble Persian aspirations

play to the dramatic music of grief,

written in hot desert sand by

a swift and terrible thief.