Gallery of Ruins by David Chorlton We would lose a hundred thousand people
rather than the city's walls.
A yellow truck stalled for the winter,
a curtain spread wide
across the empty street
from a room filled with sky,
five hundred years of smoke
rose from the kitchen in seconds,
(we do not cry for the deceased)
and black dust splashed
where the wall was struck
above the graffiti Tito lives!
Faces of steel and glass
tower above a fallen statue
where nobody walks.
They hit the libraries first.
A picture of the mosque
is a picture of everyone.
Even the blood
is only one person's hand
opening its fingers on the pavement.
(after photography by Kemal Hadzic of Bosia)

---

First GRIST On-Line publication, December, 1996. © 1996 David Chorlton