Auction
Translated by: Dr. Sharef Fayez

I drank all night
I drank all night
I used so much of my freedom that I ran out of it  
Why should I worry if Afghanistan falls?
Why should I worry if one hot noon
zealots of lash and iron
with their rope of fanaticism hang my brothers?
Why should I worry if the virgin girls of the Hindo Kosh hills
are auctioned off beyond the Gulf’s salt waters
at the vicinity of Mecca --
who knows?--perhaps at Mecca itself.
Let Islam rule over my homeland;
Islam is the supreme law of Muslims
To the zealots, my father and
your father are not Muslims
even though the poor old men pray five times a day
at the local mosque
My father and your father
must believe in such a way
that the one-eyed Amir ul-Mumineen can see them
And Osama Bin Ladin is the last Messiah 
My father and your father must believe
Your father and my father must believe


Peshawar, July 2002