"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 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.
