War Zone

A narrow bridge connects two hearts together.
A bridge where the river flows underneath,
and the moonlight dances with the waves at night.
Two young lovers, one from each nation
used to cross the bridge once in the morning,
and once after work to reach each other in the middle,
and become one whole body.

A wounded soldier is wandering
on the same half burnt bridge is
looking for his missing hand.
A mother’s gaze has frozen on the western side of the river,
as a bloated corpse swims down stream.
Could it be her golden hair youngster
whose laughter shook their shabby home
as he returned from school?

The thunder of a war plane engulfs the silence,
and fire rains down.
A drone, hidden from sight registers every moment
and military men with bloated bellies
and greedy eyes are looking at the pictures taken
by the drone.

Of the two lovers, one has gone to fight
in a war with her lover who has turned
enemy overnight.
The poet who had written their love story
has broken her pen and spilled the ink
over the wall
to hide the “death to the enemy “ slogan.
She would never write love songs,
and the gypsies would never dance
on the bridge which connected those two cities.

Years later,
when the conflict ended,
and both sides united to condemn the fire bearers,
I was sitting on a hillside, where I could view
both, north and south.
And the silence was broken by the thunder
of music from a carnival joining in the middle.
And I thought to myself how can we ravage
our own kind over nothingness?