Portside

 By Majid Naficy

I read in Egyptian papyruses

That Truth and Falsehood were brothers.

One day Truth borrowed Falsehood’s dagger

But lost it by misfortune.

Falsehood took the case to court,

Claimed the dagger was irreplaceable

And asked the judge in return

To blind Truth and order him

To become the doorkeeper of Falsehood’s house.

Today, too, a false little man

Has blinded Truth

By his repetitious denial of facts

And made him the doorkeeper of his house

And stopped journalists and scientists

Who are the gatekeepers of the house of Truth

From questioning and researching.

If you believe in Truth

Cleanse the house from Falsehood

And, as the child of Truth in the Egyption legend,

Rise to seek justice for Truth

Until his eyes shine again.

Majid Naficy, the Arthur Rimbaud of Persian poetry, fled Iran in 1983, a year and a half after the execution of his wife, Ezzat in Tehran. Since 1984 Majid has been living in West Los Angeles. He has published two collections of poetry in English Muddy Shoes (Beyond Baroque, Books, 1999) and Father and Son (Red Hen Press, 2003) as well as his doctoral dissertation at UCLA, Modernism and Ideology in Persian Literature (University Press of America, 1997). Majid has also published more than 20 books of poetry and essays in Persian.