KAMISHLI¹

Writing to you from here, my friend,
what else can I tell you about
other than pain, sadness?
I would have to paint for you
a picture of us here in this city,
have to show you the face
of who is a stranger, driven out
from his very own land,
I would have to draw a country
of frontiers – spikes and guns
between mouth and mouth
between hand and hand –
borders.

Slowly the hours meander
in the darkness of streets, lanes, markets
dragging sorrow, sadness;
hours hung on the trees and the walls,
people wounded by the stabs
of bad luck.
Here, time is a machine
and the police control it.

--- FERHAD SHAKELY

¹Kamishli is a city of Kurdistan in Syria. Because of its closeness to Iraqi Kurdistan, the politically persecuted Iraqi Kurds found refuge there.