Our Distant Dream

Loud war drums, the people of the valley are asleep,

Fleets occupy the Gulf,

Alien creatures test planet Earth with a new virus,

Our vaccine is golden couplets and what remains of our national hymn,

We write love in poetry while nuclear missiles target their goals in the Far East,

I smell coffins of death drawing palm shrouds on my shoulders,

Gigantic spiders weave their webs around spring,

And still, dawn remains our distant dream.

~ Firas Alwaily