The Agony of Homs, Syria
By J.C. Salazar
Homs, city of martyrs, city of hope, surrendered today.
The long held history of resistance reached an abrupt end
and the forces of the evil ruler have prevailed.
Homs is no longer because it could not face alone
the greater power of an armed dictator, not alone.
The noble fighters, once of rank, and ragtag volunteers
held on as long they could, but the inevitable doom,
the suffocation, reached the head, and it was time to face
the stench of defeat and live to breathe a few more days,
or else to perish whole and never fight again.
The sacred capital of the resistance has folded in
the revolution and now becomes the focus of "what's next?"
Can Syria pivot in such a devastated place?
Bashar Assad is betting on it despite the fragmentation
and despair, despite the hatreds and the pain,
To strut and preen before the world
No alley, street, nor highway lies intact today,
Nor green field green; no sky is blue, no friend complete.
The early protests of ten thousand hopeful faces gone;
The once beautiful faces of man, woman, and child
all dimmed of roses on the cheek and sparkle in the eye.
The toll of 500 then 1000 days of shelling and starvation
took effect, gradually first, then at full throttle
till this. So what can be done in Baba Amr anymore?
The victor mumbles of “reconciliation” despite the people’s
Haunting memories of all the horrors and abuse,
And he begs for peaceful submission to the new order,
Forgetting that the guns are confiscated in illusion
Because the bodies roaming all the streets are hollow
The city lies in tatters and crumbling all around,
stories of mothers feeding grass to infants,
looking gaunt as all the specters of a concentration camp,
staring still at the boys with guns on every side, whispering:
“Each one is a rooster crowing on his rubbish pile,” --
O, Homs, can all this rubbish ever turn to gold?
***
By Jose C. Salazar
The English professor and Director of the TRIO
HCC, Central Campus. Houston, TX.
June 2014