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In the Shadow of the Shah

The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran By Reza Baraheni Vintage Press; $3.95; 278 pages

What happened on a September day in 1973

Is already an old story

But imagine a sieve, or rather, a screen

Placed in front of your memories

And everything passing through it

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The faces of all men and women you loved

The children you saw and spoke with

The grass on which you slept

The stars you watched, the camels you rode

The rabbits you followed

Imagine all of them and other memories

Passing through the screen

And changing and changing, constantly changing

And becoming things which are unrecognizable

Imagine all love and beauty kept behind that screen

Or memories distorted, standing upside down

Or swollen like decomposing flesh

Imagine a hell you recognize to have been your personal paradise

Imagine

I used to be innocent --From "I Used to Be Innocent,"   by Reza Baraheni

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