Black means night
Baktash Abtin
and a dark alley means
your bright voice after we say goodbye
whether I will be or not
every evening,
my dreams will
kiss you in that alley!
White means hospital
and the thin blades of the fan mean
the world spins around me
You are not here so I
could wash the feet of the night
and wrapped in a white blanket, I
pretend to be dead
The dissident Iranian poet and filmmaker Baktash Abtin has died of Covid-19 in hospital after being released on a furlough from prison where he was infected.
Abtin was transferred to hospital in the capital Tehran “but the treatment did not succeed and he died”, the semi-official ISNA news agency said on Saturday.
PEN America, a human rights group, said on Twitter: “Covid is a natural killer, but Abtin’s death was aided and abetted by the Iranian government every step of the way.” Continue
