#aleppo
Sikorki tchnienie w locie musnęło ziemię,
Kresy, wrzosy, suche liście też na wietrze.
Na sykomorze dalekiej Arabii ustała,
skulonego u jej korzeni tego, co sonety
o Aleppo układał, wysłuchała,
i przeto myślami po raz pierwszy
swe osmolone smogiem skrzydełka przetarła:
"Ku czemu się wykluwałam? Ku czemu latałam?
Swym trelem, uwagi skinieniem, czego mam być wyrażeniem?"
Nagle poczuła w każdej małej kości:
"Odpowiedź jest jedna: Miłości"
Że ma ona twarz wszystkiego, niczego, spojrzenia naszego:
Dwóch samców złączonych łabędzia czarnego,
Smutku dla szczęścia innego znoszonego,
Sekretu czule z łzami deszczowi wyznanego
I drzewa z grzyba korzeniem splątanego.
Że ku temu radość innym daje, że tego jest formą,
Wszystkich uczuć, chwil i wrażeń zmową.
"Dziękuję", na tą myśl światu odpowiedziała,
z wdzięczności dla poety z dołu
korę drzewa pocałowała,
i z nową tęsknotą, ku niebu Syrii,
odleciała.
Jun 17, 2020
Jun 17, 2020 at 6:03 AM UTC
Words like
“Syria”,
“Arabia”
or
“Aleppo”
somehow as beautiful sound
like oil pastels
on beige
found
Jun 14, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 at 7:04 PM UTC
Post me a letter bomb to blow me up.
Reduce me to pieces for I've had enough.
The biggest bit of me, my thumb.
Look at it just sitting there, on the floor.
I’m like strawberry jam, all over the walls.
Best way to be in this selfish money grabbing world, dead.
Blown up like those stuck in Aleppo.
Blitzed by Putin's bombs in the world's weapon proving ground.
I want no part of it or the world.
Tell them I'm from Aleppo and that I too write.
What will you write about us all, when we’re gone?
Then gather my ****** remains and put them in a hole.
For then I'm home and finally free.
Like all of the others, killed my Putin and the rest.
Worse than the Devil at his worst.
All for power, weapons sales and pride.
Mar 1, 2020
Mar 1, 2020 at 12:38 AM UTC
Death of Aleppo
Sara L Russell 1st May 2018
When I saw your before-and-after
how I cried
I died a thousand deaths
on your bleak soil
a golden city built on hope and pride
now rubble, bloodied waters
and turmoil
Despoil is not the word
to fit the scene
Annihilate seems closer
to the mark
a land devoured by the war machine
once here, a fountain
there a local park
In stark contrast to
all that's left today
bereft of everything you once
held dear
What went before is lost and blown away
the aftermath seems now
forever here
When we saw your before and after
photographs
flat epitaphs of never-
ending pain
condolences in tiny paragraphs
appeared in hollow hashtags
once again.
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 9:33 PM UTC
Do green fingers still pull triggers?
Or do they only till the fields of hair?
Ploughing furrows of worry through thinning follicles,
Tangled knots of concern, snarling their path from the true.
Or can they only point accusingly,
Trembling fists beneath pointed judgements?
Hoping the directions sought by those lost,
Do not lead them down the garden path of violence.
This is for a man who takes nurturing into his hands.
A man who believes that the Kingdom of God can be found on earth.
A man who is determined to labour here in this the city of his birth
To cultivate the hope that springs eternal.
Changes part of the faith in his dreams to piece together his reality;
A world without violence.
These hopes are sleep sent for certain.
But his hands are sandstone
So when he rubs the rest from his eyes
He's only shaping his wishes into something less fleeting
For sure, his resting place is a flower bed
cos he wakes plants from their sleeping.
For each shoot that doesn't fire and grow
And each root that doesn't take hold and show
Each colour he knows they're capable of,
feels like a personal blow to all the effort he's put in.
This is the last gardener of Aleppo
His name is Abu *** and he is sick of watching his city fall apart
Ash Shabbah – the city of white soil and pale marble
Now the white of ash, pale of face and fearful.
Once sanctuary against war,
Now this may as well be the last garden in the world.
He tells us “flowers help the world and there is no greater beauty than flowers”
And so for years, as his city suffers pallid,sickly but not bloodless,
He makes bouquets by roadsides for those who chose to stay
or have nowhere else to go,
or have left but their bodies remain,
And whose only beauty is ribcage grown
He wreathes his arm around the world
Turns our world into a garden of funeral tributes,
appreciated only now
In stark contrast to the destruction that never ceases.
He tends to carry on conversations with the dead
Motionless beneath the surface.
Friends or strangers
Rubble roused and fleeing, now their journey ended
Escaped as best they could, holding flowers in hands
as he tends his garden still.
It’s a losing battle, lost
How only weeds grow through the cracks that civilization left .
Lichens lasting forever whenever they find the surface to hold onto long enough in this turmoil.
Though he pines for lillies;
White crocus and daisies grow best in rebel held streets.
No matter.
He makes the dinner he deserves
fragrant with rosebay willow herb
And sage for remembering
But he can’t help but develop a bad taste in his mouth .
He has no taste for retribution
And he has nothing to cleanse the palate,
Of the pungency of despair,
The starvation of the soul.
The desert creeps further into his domain every year
Tendrils of havoc pushed like weeds wicked fingers by fertile bullets
Planted with no thought for the cruel blooms that unknown casualties assume know best
Brush strokes of red lichen, grace pocked walls carelessly evident of lives now past.
For every gravestone reminder of fertile soil
He knows each harvest relies on the last.
Cultivating only goodness in his heart,
the last gardener opposes the law of abandoned places:
That only rot will grow in the spaces left by humanity’s neglect
With agriculture he fights the ravages of the faithless. Torn turning this place into nothingness,
Looking for any hope this last chance leaves in a forest fresh of despair
So he tells us he’s heard from God that
“This tree will live and we will live despite everything.”
And he believes that the timbre of his voice would drown out the violence as he kneels in prayer,
As everything he loves splinters around him.
And he believes that even against the decrepit disrepair
That He can make this place an Eden again,
An oasis of calm during conflict.
Ibrahim lost his father
But maybe his memory can blossom and some beauty can bloom from the killing fields
Of the lily white city that can raise it’s own colours as a flag
And surrender itself to the will of the God of the Gardeners.
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 11, 2017 at 4:35 PM UTC
I once sat at the table with my family
Prepared to feast on the small bread and glass of water
Dust lingering in the musty air
From disasters ongoing
Outside our doors
Each meal quieter than the last
As outside the noise grows louder
The earth moves stronger
The atmosphere daunting
Big eyes staring at me
How they haunt me day and night
The sound of that whistling
Like a rampaging train
Signaling its approach towards hell
Making its presence known
For those unsuspecting few
Wondering where the train will wind up
Until its too late
The screams in the chaos
The unappetizing bread
The unquenchable water
Evaporating into nothing
The sudden darkness
This is what blindness must be like
The pain shooting through my spine
The confusion my brain feels
Trying to piece together what just happened
The sudden darkness
I'm all alone in the hell that is my home
Surrounded by carnage
And the white helmets
Bringing me back to what
I think is reality
I don't know
Yet the sudden darkness
Haunts me to this day
It should've consumed me too
JM 4/20/17
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 8:40 PM UTC
Aleppo
City besieged
So many fallen
Beneath your feet
Joy and Laughter
Replaced by
Horrors unseen
I see the pain
In your eye
Senseless fighting
Bombs falling from the sky
Screaming, Yelling
Children crying
Blood on your streets
The world on its knees
Hoping for peace
Your beauty forsaken
Loved ones taken
A path of destruction
Complete devastation
Will you ever be
Aleppo again?
JM 10/3/16
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 10:36 AM UTC
Save Aleppo oh Lord, send down the rain
relief her soldiers, from this steady pain
save Aleppo oh Lord, let Peace prevail
solace her children, our mothers pray.
Dec 20, 2016
Dec 20, 2016 at 2:59 PM UTC
"breathe, darling
in, out, in, out,
it's okay, baby, you're doing great.
it's okay, baby, don't be afraid
i'm right here
i'll always be with you, okay?
i know it's painful, honey, i know
i'm sorry i can't help you
but you have to breathe, okay?
help is on the way
see that light over there?
there's men coming,
they're going to help--"
Mommy stopped soothing her crying baby, as the people lifted the infant up from the rubble. She gulped, instructed to them on how to hold him, where the wounds have pained him, even if she knew that it was no use.
after all, the voice of the dead can't be heard by the living.
Dec 18, 2016
Dec 18, 2016 at 1:05 AM UTC
This is a prayer
for the Children of Aleppo
Whose tragedy was concealed before the eyes of the giants
Whose tears never had a chance to fall down to the ground
My Lord, my Almighty One
Keep these children
Welcome them back to Your arms
Let them feel loved again
Help them subside the pain they felt
Fill their newly-furnished rooms
With songs and laughter
Let them forget the scent of gunpowder and bombs
Teach them how to smile once more
Bring back the glimmer in their eyes
And as for those who still breathe to survive
Conceal them with Your love and immense protection
Let them know that beneath the ends of the earth
There would always be a sunrise
A new day
Where they could draw their stories
And dance their dreams
With those eyes
staring into blank distance
Bewildered,
Unaware of what will happen next
Let them hear my voice
A small voice of cheering them up
For this is all I could do for now
How foolish am I
Lavishly sitting on a comfortable bed
Under a secured roof
Writing a poem for those who gained my sympathy
But You know
There's more to that
Let them reach this
I want to tell them
How much they could change this world
Hang on tight
Believe me
Each and everyone of you
are tougher than any fighter this history could ever tell.
Dec 16, 2016
Dec 16, 2016 at 9:07 AM UTC
In Aleppo, they do not weep
for how can one
weep in wounded time.
Souls bantered
piled up, interlocked
dead & dull
lost in dusts
in a cold frenzy night.
Oppress Eden
but not Aleppo
not today, not tonight
not in this time
where children can’t weep
to save their tears
for them to drink
& not their blood
while trapped
within collapsed walls
of the wailing world.
Children of Aleppo
cry not, die not.
Memories will never bury you
to the infested ground
saturated by psychedelic bombs
& festered by maddening
cataclysm of human cold art.
The old world tries to redeem you,
to let you live, live with living
but it cannot for how can the world
try to win, then and again
tears back to emotive impulses
breaking the wind pulsating
in the plane sanity of mind?
In Aleppo, dead men forgot
to weep. Forgetful men
wept yet weeping
with no clause why.
Aeroplanes are still there
buzzing the sky,
bombing your hearts.
Aleppo, your body might die
tonight & several nights more
but memory, in this wounded time
will never bury you to ash
for Aleppo, young child, will live
beyond wounds, beyond cries.
Dec 14, 2016
Dec 14, 2016 at 10:45 PM UTC
streams of salt and H2O leak
down reddened cheeks and condense
in a golden beard. a war-torn nation,
half-a-world-away, crystallizes clear as dayspring
in an insomniac's screaming and fragile psyche
at half-past-three in the morning.
what strength must a seven-year-old posses
to persevere amidst the perversity of cluster bombs?
munitions bought and paid for with the taxes
we fork over to the United States. will her blood one day
stain our hands with crimson? will her mother's?
a girl who just wanted to read, to escape
the tragedy that inundates our surroundings,
to a magical realm of pure imagination.
where we can summon spectral stags
to save us from the misery of humanity
and learn to disarm those who would harm
us with the charm, Expelliarmus!
the bastion where i found the first seeds that grew
into a rebellion opens its doors to you, Bana.
there's a crater where your house used to be,
rubble strewn in Aleppo, Syria. but know that Hogwarts
will always be there to welcome you home.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 4:05 AM UTC
Dear Alex,
I listened to President Obama read the letter you wrote today,
To an unfortunate little boy from Aleppo, and how you’d like to be his protege.
In preparation for his visit, you would gather all you’re most precious possessions,
Offering to him love, friendship and a gift called freedom of expression.
You would teach him and he would share his world with you,
A bonding camaraderie colored in Red, White and Blue.
You my friend, have a heart of gold like a treasure untold,
Because showing love to others…..is a longing in your soul.
Thanks you Alex!
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 2:18 PM UTC
from her window she could see
the shells of buildings the bombs battered--gray concrete
ghosts, haunting in their silence
Father said his ears
hadn't stopped ringing since the attacks, though he still
could hear her playing
and he expected her practice to continue
for one day, he promised, prayers would prevail, peace
would return, and her song would be heard
play, he entreated, for ivory, black
and white, has forgotten the evil of men, their carnage;
the notes know nothing except to be played
and to give pause for hope, when
more trenchant sounds demanded one’s attention,
still the song must remain
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 7:38 PM UTC