Oh Baghdad

 

 

A tear Jerusalem sheds
in a silent night

A rose an orphan placed
on caliph’s tomb

A dagger
cutting through a prophet’s soul

 

Baghdad

 

A thought

 in the inquisitive mind
of a renaissance philosopher

A river of blood

flowing between banks of pain

A sigh
coming from deep,
deep inside the heart of an Assyrian god

 

 

Oh Baghdad:

 

The flowers that grow in your soil
will have the shape of wounds
and the smell of fear

 

 

November 30, 2003