Pina Piccolo
Mahmoud Darwish Whispers His Soul over Gaza
You were taken by a merciful death, Mahmoud
Lest phosphorous devour your heart
A chorus of stones answered
As the Strip lay awash in wrath
And a swallow looked and wept
As the bricks came unwrapped
And the song of ages drowned
The knocks of unmanned flight
As a tribe of pigeons cooed
A sleeping lone baby
Through the night
And the ghosts of the olive groves
Bereft of poet
Sang the Buraq back to life.
Kyiv; or Playing with Shadows
Shadow playing
With bits of flesh
And rubble
Over the rumble
Of the artillery
Over the hissing
Of the drone
Over the flash
Of terror
And the paralysis
Of dread
Playing in the shadows
The sniper adjusts
The target in the cross-hairs
To make sure the word
smithereens is onomatopoeic
The walls hold the shadows
Of the fleeing millions
Just as the concrete
Trapped the outline
Of the girl of Hiroshima
For Aleppo
April is the cruelest month of all
said the crow
as she sat in mourning
near a crumbled hospital wall
where ten tender bodies lay
next to the last pediatrician
who wouldn’t leave the city
In the olden days
that city had a port
and it was near those very same walls
that Jonas was dragged
by an obstinate old whale
who wouldn’t let him
escape his gift of prophecy
Can’t turn your face away
from the evil that was wrought
upon your fellow beings
on the land, the air and the sea
Can’t turn away
cried the crow
as she pecked at the salt
of indifference and deception
to make its gullet
turn it into tears.
“Kyiv; or Playing…”,continued from left bottom)
Memento mori walls
To dust you shall return
No hard witness encased
To undermine the debunking
As no bunkers
Are ever safe
And the panzer
Strays in the countryside
Stuck in the mud
With no fuel
Pulled and yanked here and there
To fit patterns and designs
Spawned by power gamers
(and their geopolitical faithful
of all ilk and profession)
The truth mournfully lies in cosm-agony
No longer confiding in a rescue
Or a coup de grace