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Love song to Sarajevo.

 

A love song should be sung with joy not shame

Yes a love song should be sung with joy

But it is with shame that I write

A love song to Sarajevo.

 

I hear of the deaths and the blood spilled

And the killing goes on and on and on

And it is with shame that I write

A love song to Garasda.

 

I heard a Muslim child cry

Rescued but leaving her mother behind

And it is with shame that I write

A love song to Mostar.

 

I heard from the quietness of our radio

A man cry for his Serb sister, lost and unheard

And it is with shame that I write

A love song to Belgrade.

 

A Serb speaks of his anger that the world

Has simply turned away and no longer listens

And it is with shame that I write

A love song to Tuzla.

 

A doctor speaks of the death of the wounded

A hospital bombed and riddled by sniper fire

And it is with shame that I write

A love song to the people.

 

Love songs should be sung with joy

But my heart is filled with pain.

 

 

First published in Rob Cullen’s first poetry collection Uncertain Times – Octavo Press 2016.

©RobCullen2017

A love song to Giulio Regini and the disappeared.

 

Your soul is a bright shining flame

A beacon illuminating darkness

For those who stand in days brightness.

It will never light those hiding in shame

 

Your spirit is the brightest of stars

That sparkles glowing in the night sky

So bright it shines through the lie

Of those who took you in their cars.

 

Your name and life will be remembered

Poems will be written about you

Love songs will be sung to you

Your name and life will be remembered.

 

This is a love song to Giulio Regini

And to all those who disappeared

Whose lives and memories are dear

For all those taken from the warmth

Of their families and people they loved

This a love song to sing to the stars

This a love song to sing loud and clear

This is a love song to Giulio Regini.

 

©RobCullen2017

 

The wonderful Giles Turnbull reading tonight – his poetry spreads colour into everyone who listens!  Great poet!

 

Paola Deffendi is still waiting.

 

Paola Deffendi is waiting.

Guilio Regeni her son lies buried under a line of cypress trees.

Her son’s gravestone is just a plain marble slab.

Unadorned except for flowers, devotional candles and a small photograph

His face open and earnest.

 

Paola Deffendi is waiting.

‘It’s all over the happiness of our family was so short.’’

She waits for justice to be done and for truth to be told.

Veritas for Guilio Regeni.

And love will triumph, love for a child will not be out done.

His face open and earnest.

 

Paola Deffendi is waiting.

Nagy said – ‘‘We will just have to wait. Inshallah, something will come of it.’’

And the secrecy of darkness enfolds always playing for time.

Hoping people will forget, and we and the world will stop watching.

And Guilio Regeni lies buried under a line of cypress trees

His gravestone a plain marble slab.

 

 

 

Paola Deffendi is waiting.

For the real truth and not the convenient truth to be revealed.

And those at the top who know – have secrets in the darkness of their hearts

Guilio Regini’s broken and violated body was left propped up

Waiting to be found. But they’d found it already

It was in plain view. And they knew, they knew.

 

Paola Deffendi is waiting.

A mother honours the child she brought into this world,

The son she loved and watched as any mother would.

A child who grew into manhood with brilliance and compassion

And the intense inquisitiveness that showed his humanity

And now Guilio Regeni lies buried under a line of cypress trees.

 

 

“But we will not stop until we find an answer. We owe it to his mother.”

 

©RobCullen2017