Ladies First Mr President

By Osamah Golpy:

I wrote this poem for Afghan women in the first place. However, in February 2014 two Kurdish women, two sisters, were found dead in Saidsadiq, Sulaimanyah in the Kurdistan Region. They were reportedly murdered at the hands of their relatives. That is why, besides Mr. Obama, ‘Mr. President’ also refers to the Kurdistan Region’s President, Masoud Barzani: They have both let women down: the former, by leaving women defenceless by the end of 2014 in Afghanistan; and the latter, well no need to say, every day one (or two) more victims fall into devil hands, including into the hands of his inner circle.

Ladies First Mr. President, Ladies First

is how freedom into my ears whispers

Acquired at nurseries, learned in battle fields

“Ladies First,” is what I learned from refugees

Talibans are just like you and I, yet more western

Ladies First they say, where? To hell more than often

Women, you go first and smell thunder and fire

Ladies First, Mr. President, nature needs and require

Eyes closed, head down, breath held; rocks however

Shelter not rebels – broke the promise deemed forever*

The blackest clothes seem so apparent in the darkest day

Cause stones this time fell in hands we hardly slay

Cursed that woman who for one moment fought

To read, to write, to weep a word she never bought

A girl told me, much before she learned how to plea

“Leave us in peace, let death to come, set us free”

Death, as she told me, has place, date and time

Yet we sell Him early meetings for a vote and dime

Cursed I to be voted for you, you my President

Out of question “My Ladies First” has no present

‘No’ I should say to “Ladies First,” I fight a meeting;

sets bodies under stones red in bleeding

*Rocks are supposed to shelter and hide anyone who takes refuge behind them. However, in this case, they have turned in to tools by which stoning takes place. They kill instead of protecting the unprotected people.