Type
Poetry

In Memoriam Hashem Shaabani

(Ahwazi Arab poet executed by the Iranian regime, 27 January 2014)

We searched you in the hollows
And we searched you in the fen
We took you down for mercy
And we took you down again

We heard you’d gone a-roaming
And taken up your pen
We heard you used the Holy Name
And took that Name in vain

We saw you in the papers
And we heard you in the den
We knew you’d gone a-roaming
By the treason of your pen

We thought we’d show you mercy
And let you live again
We thought we’d offer clemency
If you’d just put down the pen

You raised it high against us
Stabbed us dead and dead again
With your prophecies of freedom
That take the Holy Name in vain.

We searched you in the hollows
And we searched you in the fen
We took you down for mercy
And we took you down again

We found you in the hollows
And we found you in the fen
And we took you down for mercy
So you’ll never rise again.

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Martin Kovan is an Australian writer of non-fiction, fiction and poetry. He also works in academic ethics and philosophy. In Australia his writing has appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Overland, Australian Poetry Journal, Colloquy, Westerly, Island Magazine, Peril Magazine, Southerly and Mascara Literary Review, and overseas in the USA, France, the Czech Republic, India, Hong Kong, UK and Thailand. His recent novel K. the Interpreter was shortlisted for the 2020 Dorothy Hewett Award.

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