ODDS & ENDS / SARAJEVO ROSE - WAR RHYMES
"Examine its pedigree carefully before you buy
such an expansive pet!", there had been advising
each other their owners, longing
for the noble ancestry for them themselves.
such an expansive pet!", there had been advising
each other their owners, longing
for the noble ancestry for them themselves.
Only now when the nature of the War Rhymes has been fully disclosed,
I can call in peace,
as my witness,
a poor Math teacher.
A fellow, who'd made his home in a Marin-dvor’s grave-like basement,
long before all remaining Sarajevo populace descended their cellars’ stairs,
as fleeing from the grenades,
cascading from the sky;
round the clock.
I call on him,
whether dead or still alive,
to support my testimony that:
soon after the city’s got enclosed
by the fence of the aggressors hate
&
world indifference
&
the Bosnian government’s foxy policy,
Sarajevo streets got crowded,
instead with humans,
with their pets.
Cats and dogs, namely, wearing the plates around their necks.
Not to be identified once when killed,
don’t burble!
who’s ever seen these tender quadrupeds going to the front?
but to be recognised as the someone from the chosen stock.
Examine its pedigree carefully before you buy such an expansive pet!, there had been advising each other their owners,
longing for the noble ancestry for them themselves.
A throng of mongrel,
pure-bred,
thoroughbred,
dogs,
started coming out of their deserted homes,
when the mortal music notes began showering from the hills.
And their unscrupulous masters left the broken state for the stable - western,
in whose opulent shops they had actually purchased them.
Hadn’t we been the only meaning of their hollow lives and the only objects worthy of their tender feelings?!
there were murmuring for themselves,
as feeling up the vacant streets and parks of the Olympic city of Sarajevo, the:
poodles,
Pekineses,
duchies,
spaniels,
collies,
greyhounds,
afghans
(behold! dogs, not humans),
alsatians,
Labradors,
Dalmatians
(again animals, not men)
...
Bewildered,
as much as Sarajevo war populace,
they had started roving the city unoccupied districts; in quest of food.
Under constant,
must be a new sort of
rain.
Along with them there walked out,
still full of pride,
and well-dressed,
the cats.
Real dames.
If not all of them Siamese, but enough pretty to deserve,
prior to this Doom Day,
a special clothe and meal, chosen according to their own taste,
from the shelves of Sarajevo mini markets.
Who did care
at that fiddle-fuddle time
for some hungry children in dark Africa,
or impoverished Asia and Latino-America?!
Who could think about what did the Palestinian kids eat,
if ever they did,
in their made-shift homes uglier than cans in which there had been canned their beloved’s chow?!
Who could be bothered with suffering of the oppressed, tortured, deprived, occupied, molested...
in far-off Burma, Cashmere, Nicaragua, Djibouti...?!
In all that troublesome Third World countries, which
"Anyway,"
said she,
herself starving during the first Sarajevo war-famine,
"haven’t got used to better!"
And went on, the cheeks reddish with anger:
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