Cesspool Your Name is War by Faleeha Hassan

As they opened the gates of war

My father has had to take off his youth

To go in stripped of hope of return,

And mom had lie in the bed of tears

Covered with her agony.

Only I was there,

Foolishly, watching the silent clock on the wall

As it struck my disappointments, one by one.

Two wars had later passed, or more,

When father returned but as a flag,

Mother flapped, and both vanished high into the sky.

Since then our home has turned into a soldier’s boot.

Whenever I try to dust it off,

A burnt memory would fall off a day

.That’d been lost in the cesspool of war

…………………………………………………

Translated into English by

        Hussein Nasser Jabr