«الأبنودي» يهدي «ضحكة المساجين» لعلاء عبدالفتاح

A poem titled "Prisoners' laughter"
Al-Abnoudi writes poem for detained Blogger Alaa Abdel-Fattah
The birds sing the praises of their cages
A jail cell which for your sake hates its warden
Come taste with us the sweetness of the prison cells
Extend your legs out on the length of its bench
Your warden will never understand you
No matter how hard he tries to figure out who you are
The sun is a flame of stubbornness...refusing to set
It thinks hard about your dilemma
The sun grieves as does any prisoner
And the night is your partner in patience on this journey
It sings and the night is dark
It inherited its songs from the sufferings of those that came before you
In the darkness, scold Egypt and plead your case
You are the one whose soul has been longing for it
Twins, born in a moment of passion
Blessed are all those unjustly imprisoned
In an era of deception and procrastination
O shining suns in dark rooms
The guard's steps outside the window
You spend your nights listening to the sound of footsteps
Your warden is the one in need of a lawyer
The War and those who boldly fought it
Were Muslims and Christians
So how can we advocate one religion and oppose another?
Those planting the seeds of division between us
Dividing us into two teams which hate each other
Have the intention of splitting a unified Egypt
I salute you…I write it in my own handwriting
You must pay the price for loving your Coptic brothers
Although, we are the descendants of Copts
Was there a difference in the color
of the blood of those that died in Tahrir Square?
Ask those arriving to show us any difference in color
The cry is soft but it has shaken the universe
The foolish tell the rose to hide its color
But what does the bull know about fresh garden air?
Evil lies drunk at the end of the Square
Military men obscure the breaking dawn
As you pave a path before those coming to join
The revolution is a shining light and those who stole it are malicious
Dancing between the martyrs and those detained
While blood still floods the squares
They do not repent and learn nothing from the past
They listen to no one but themselves
They understand nothing about the people's love for their land
If we say yes, they say no
And to tell the truth, they have a point
For you created a revolution through blogging
Look at their healthy red faces
While we with our dark faces are a wearisome heritage
For they are the heirs who have inherited our homeland
They are not like us, look at their color, listen to their accents
They look foreign or at least Turkish
Their army left but they held on like leaches
The Mayor is as heavy as his great belly
His bad watermelon went mad and extended its thrones
His guard has a most thunderous shout
We come out of one hole only to fall into the next
Bear witness O country on the traitors amongst us
For you are their book holder
Egypt is watching and is patiently aware
But out of nowhere it will prevail
And recover its names and places
No matter how dull the voice
Do not despair from the injustice and stand strong
No one can put out the flame of the sincere
He who stands in the face of its revolutionaries
Will inherit nothing but humiliation and shame
And all that will remain is the prisoners' laughter
O Lord, make my words light
My brain is awake, but my heart is slain
I fear to moan and make the sad even sadder
Why are you silent Egypt although you hear my moaning
The dream is displayed in the market of our era
Before the eyes of those devoid of vision
The prison cell has taken lessons on silence
And recognized you before you even arrived
Your silence suits the silence of the stones
Sadness has truely filled our hearts
All that remains are the thorns on the rosebushes
Spring mistakenly entered the dumbest of ambushes
O ye who are crying, take back your tears
The whole world is watching and listening
Where will the thieves hide their stash?
Your son is the dawns light and he will be given his rightful status
And our homeland knows its people have its back
Generations are on their way out and new ones will replace them
My son, bend over and tell your brothers
That the traitor is back and he has now betrayed you
And the prison is still hungry for more fine youth
Like deer that have fallen in the darkness of a forest
Prison bars with a deceitful laugh
A laugh exposing yellow teeth
As for those who betrayed our country
They are placed with dignity in other prison cells
In which they sleep and wake up while everyone else stands
They wait for you to despair with time
While others are being saluted in their cages
While slaps and kicks await us
No matter how high the scale goes up
They bring you down, whether you like it or not
These are not the kind of people who are honest with scales
Slow down Egypt, as you pass by
The sound of his silence is louder than my voice
This is the prisoner who did not go to bed sad
The same people still rule us
They just sent others to represent them
And you were thrown into the sardine can
Their dream is that everything will go back to the way things were
And that the judges will emancipate them
As if the revolution never came to pass
For the revolutionary youth have been detained
And there is nothing to stand in the way of the traitors' betrayals
Tahrir Square is now lost amongst the squares
O youth, let us erase the features of your revolution
As if tearing out a page in a book
Then everything will calm down and those absent can once again return
As if there was no revolution and no revolutionaries
As if the angry people of Egypt did not exist
As if there was no 11 or 20 October
So just sit down and drink a cup of tea
The world will continue to turn and our people will forget
And it is all thanks to the media and the press
And if they begin to bark, hit them with laws
And bridle their tongues
For you can always whip up new laws in the kitchen
You are a moon staying up late with your friends
Dreaming of tomorrow and its long lost paradise
Holding on to the dream, refusing to wake up
O Egyptian garden rose
Your banner casts its shadow over the water
While other banners create the Nile’s waves
O Egyptian garden rose
Your banner casts its shadow over the water
While other banners create the Nile’s waves
O Egyptian garden rose
Your banner casts its shadow over the water
While other banners create the Nile’s waves
Your days in prison are neither justified nor legal
These youth with an exceptional tomorrow
Share it with millions of others
The birds will remain on the window sills
And dawn will wait for the rooster to crow
The homeland, the dream and dawn embracing
In court you stand as rivals
The same question...you answer with silence
Then you go back and throw yourself back on the blankets
Strangers and relatives alike all understand
Your silence in itself is your accusation
In this era, all honest men and women are defendants
Can the likes of these possibly be our countrymen?
Tell those that have eaten its bread and poultry
The victims can hear the knife being sharpened
They are stripping the revolution of its devotees
As a tree loses its leaves
Its heart green and its branches dry
Martyrs and wounded, and the tab is getting bigger
And Bahia lets down her hair and asks
Is the whole world against Yassin’s killer?
Once again I tell the warden
Stick your nose up in the air, take a deep breath and blow as hard as you can
You will never overcome the prisoners laughter