City of Ghosts

by Walter William Safar

I walk the crumbling streets of Homs,
The city of ghosts watches the bloody sky with its dead black eyes,
There are scattered bodies of children around me,
Mothers in black,
Old men cursing the destiny
That condemned them to outlive their own children and grandchildren.
And before the sad wind extricated the
Dead child's hair,
They carried him to a tight, pestilent, dirty burial place,
From which foul diseases spread to the bodies of brothers and sisters.
And a mother nurtures a rosebud with her tears
In the place where they quickly buried her beloved
Child.
When darkness entwines their torn down homes,
A silent row of black shadows walk on a road with no return
In that same sun
And wailing wind,
Because you can't arrive too soon at such a place
Or stay too long!
The prayer of weeping mothers doesn't reach high.
Here, it seems that even prayers have their price.
While the tyrant Bashar Al Assad watches the stars,
Genuine dreamers lose theirs.
Death, it knows that down here,
Where the bloody trail vanishes in the labyrinth of wishes,
There isn't much justice,
And so, inebriated on the bloody haze, it won't go rest.
Come on, you scattered lights,
To the windows of these pestilent
And sad houses,
The echo of prayers wailed
Like a bat in the fog.
But before the next grenade whistled to praise death,
A girl ran for her plush bear,
As if it was her brother, made of the same flesh and blood,
And now they are both off
On that road of no return.
Where is that heart of mankind
Now that its mortal remains rest in its yard?
Because it took a tear much sooner...
Before the tyrant imprisoned Syria
In the darkness of his cold heart.




Walter William Safar's picture

ABOUT THE POET ~
BIOGRAPHY, WALTER WILLIAM SAFAR. Kepler poet, fiction writer and playwright. He is the author of a number of a significant number of prose works and novels, including “ The Gamble And The Ghost”, “The Ultimate  Voyage”, “Queen Elizabeth2”,   “ The Devil’s Architect”, "Leaden fog", "Chastity on sale", "Above the clouds", "The scream", "The negotiator". Plays: “Brothers”, “Birdman”, as well as a book of poems, titled "Against All Streams”, “The Boy With Silver Tears”…


Last updated September 09, 2015