Amira of Aleppo...Don't Forget Me...

Blasts, hotter than a dragon’s kiss,
cindered aromas of cinnamon and cumin,
pomegranates hang like shrunken heads.
I stand in muffled silence, humble I stare,
encased in a world of grey.

A child with liquid eyes 
scoops snow from shrapneled puddles,
weeping punctures sob scarlet .
No smiling spirits above a snarling sky.
Skylark’s chorus crinkles under blood moon. 

Stars flutter dusted blinks,
taking refuge from the Great Bear.
Swarthy gnats soak in lead-whipped air.
The Earth’s drapes draw together
by corbie black sheets of despair,
leaving scars of dun-brown, hanging...

In cauldrons of clanking metal. 
Threads of pain cripple my frame,
I walk into iced jaws of a vampire Winter.
I am angry, the snow is heavy, but,
I can’t argue with sleet.

No Pistachios, no Satsumas...
shops bombarded, 
corns flop their heads, disgusted.
Leafless limes drop blackened harvest,
a field of soot and corpsed olive trees,
limp, lanky, it’s swollen fruit...septic tonsils.

One day, one day, our harvest will flip,
sigh and swank, display the purest peridot tongues.
Tinctured streams will babble, clear, under tyrian blue veil,
Bullfinches will fly free, 
when the last whip of the War-wind
whips no more.

Dedicated to all the innocent people of Aleppo. 

Image courtesy of Wkikmedia Commons Painting in oils. Leopold Muller 19th Century.