Protesters Down
by Delir Ecwabeus
for the memory of Nedā Āghā-Soltān

They first began on Thurday in Tehran and Kermanshah,
Sharoud, Yazd, Kashmar, Neyshabour, as well as in Mashhad.
Across Iran, the protests spawned against the government,
state-sponsored rallies marking the suppression of dissent.
They burst against now rising prices, unemployment too,
corruption rampant, and dictatorship that’s gone askew.
They tore some billboards down of Ayatollah Khamenei;
and so supporters of the tyrant came out Saturday.

Perhaps it is the people Iran’s “leaders fear the most,”
a woman waving her white-shawled “hijab” upon a post.
This New Year’s Eve protesters came despite the threatened mood.
What were the names of those protesters murdered in Dorud?
And who were gunned down in the western town of Teyserkan?
Who were the people who were killed in central Shahin Shahr?
Who died in the southwestern town of Izeh in the east?
The blood-dimmed…