Can you leave a city
awash in dust and ashes
abandoned by memory and fate
by standing in its middle
and daring it
to fall around you?
Goodbye, Aleppo, this time forever
1
Can you leave a city
awash in dust and ashes
abandoned by memory and fate
by standing in its middle
and daring it
to fall around you?
Red sky over Homs
A faint riffle, a stirring
Of late summer breeze
Among the searing flesh
And the fly benighted airs
A brief hope of relief
From the deadly heat.
Meanwhile, over Damascus
The whiff of colonial pasts