"After the Bombing, Aleppo" and "Towards Life"

After the Bombing, Aleppo

Silence and moonlight
fills up each empty room

of the ruined city

just as the lava did with
the town of Pompeii;

happy children’s voices
are laughing in the past.

Silence. Then somewhere a telephone
starts to ring and it rings

and rings and rings

 

                               and rings—

 


 

Towards Life

Let it be known: you

are alive and you were not created. The sun
emits the light

of a broken light bulb, we can
feel that as our time
runs out,
our life—

the hourglass is filled with dust
from the crematorium,

but never mind that, now is

not the time for prayers, the
future of our words is silence and
we are at its dead center,
where you can learn only that

you are bound to exist, if only
to shout out

the shape of life.

 

 

Peycho Kanev

Peycho Kanev is the author of nine poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. His new chapbook titled Under Half-Empty Heaven was published in 2019 by Grey Book Press. He has several nominations for the Pushcart Prize. 

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, January 7, 2019 - 23:35