Poem:

On biding farewell to Bush

By Farouk Gueida

---

Depart in the company of disgrace:

The blood of a peaceful people on your hands

Will always haunt your sight.

All the young ones lost

In Baghdad's seas of blood

Will remain like a tattoo of disgrace on your forehead

That you can never erase.

In Gaza and Galilee all the tombstones

Are loaded with explosive rage,

Cursing your ancestors.

What remains of the multitude of death

In Baghdad, I ask.

Nothing for you remains

Apart from a miserable end

Among the ruins.

As destruction envelopes Gaza,

Black nights are your only witness.

Depart, then, in the company of disgrace,

With no one regretting your departure.

***

Depart in the company of disgrace:

Look at the silence of the mosques,

And the pleading from the pulpits to the high heavens,

With the ghosts of destruction surrounding them.

Look at Baghdad mourning its people

With death moving from house to house.

Now you are departing from Baghdad,

Leaving your dead soldiers behind

In disgrace -- and what disgrace.

Apologising will not do now;

Apologies will not do.

To whom should you apologise?

To the land, to the roads?

To the living, to the dead?

To ancient cities, or to those that are still young?

To whom should you apologise?

To historical processions, or to all the sad lands,

To the shores, or to the wasteland?

[...]

Depart in the company of disgrace,

With your ugly face,

A face engraved

On tombstones,

And on those who inhabit graves,

On Gaza's remains.

Destruction is a black vessel,

Blasting its way across crossroads and bridges.

Look at the children wavering

In the tumultuous dark nights,

A deep rage on their faces

Like a seething volcano.

Your ugly face is marked out

Because of the evil you wrought with your fake witnesses.

Nothing remains of Baghdad,

But bullets in corpses in the streets,

The shadow of death roaming the streets,

The sadness of the mosques, and the pleading of the pulpits,

Bemoaning the dumbness of prayers

In a time of heresy and debauchery.

***

Depart in the company of disgrace:

It is futile now

To hope for conscience to awake,

Or to show some public regret.

Your hands are soaked in rivers of blood.

[...]