Cries from Aleppo

Empathy from afar

Spend a month in palliative care and you’re getting close,
Our eyes & ears pinned to the skies,
What, my wife? My kids too? Can I not sleep?
What choice do I have?
Fear strikes as regularly as the hunger pangs
Everybody knows,
This place was a cemetery long ago
My neighbours, don’t ask!
The neighbourhood, a sprinkling of houses like stars in the sky
Why would I stay? You ask
This city is me! My blood, our history
Blown to pieces
They are crippling our spirit

Salutations to/Curse the invading beasts

You might wonder how it started
My dreams, our aspirations,
You can look at a pretty girl and see your wife, you know
all the while overlooking a thousand faults
We can see happiness in the world, we see peace
All we demanded was change,
from the tyranny, from the stonings.
You could look around and witness hypocrisy, daily/hourly
you think we don’t talk?
We stood united,
until the conspirators unleashed the bombs.
The bombs brought the fighters
The ongoing fighting will damn us all