You heard my story Tongue-tied My crowning glory In a World-wide Eye-folded Yet in a cottage tied One day The owner scolded The bushy eyebrows Frowned On the scent of treason Yelped the hound During the peak season Different colored Inks spilled One iota of sound reason The Mantle it pilled What follow that I detest While sight-blinded Began the Rorschach test The process, long-winded I didn’t hesitate That one-sided picture Of the issue Started to imitate Composed a tissue of lies Didn’t freak Cut my ties Promised Ink won’t leak Believed the wiseacre That talent spotter Never become a risk-taker But a life-long voter.
This poem speaks of the feudalistic political systems that dominated the Arab World for tens of years and still are! It also sheds a small amount of light on the still prominent atmosphere of a large proportion of intellectuals trying to accommodate to such a humiliating living suppressed by voracious systems. Having spilled their ink for the first time, they, intellectuals, got confronted by these systems, ‘Began the Rorschach test.’ During this confrontation, they denied what they first thought of as revolutionary ideas, and so started to imitate the systems’ story about what is happening in their societies. Moreover, they isolated themselves from their societies, ‘Cut my ties’ and promised not to allow their ink to spill again. They gave up risking their lives, and pledged allegiance to these systems.