Self Portrait of Syria

The sweet fragrance of spices Fruits ripened lush from mountain gardens The bouquets of flowers scenting the air Vivid memories of yesterday Now the flowers are black petals of death The souk reeks of burned flesh As fires from hell fell from above Those who tilled have become the earth Scorched and soiled souls, color ceases to exist In the dream world of eternal fires Hope is sucked out of you, the dead whom still walk The nomads with no eyes, lost inside timeless nightmares I am an artist, who paints with tears For those whom stories have been buried in hell fires They lay, facing the heavens, raped of their smiles Leaving Infants to cry in the night, lamenting in a sea of blood A child wanders past me, rented and soulless I take my brush and prey someone will save that one I am the invisible artist As I stab myself, my final portrait to the world