Woman

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

For your lips and bosoms warm
Sailors sail through many a storm.

For your movements and love unsealed
Plowmen sell their fields and yield.

For your smiles and hidden charms
Bankers have handcuffed their arms.

For your eyes and lengthy hair
Gypsies’ violins lure out tears.

For your perfume and pearls like ice
Gamblers place their lives in dice.

For your potent cries and sighs
Poets wash their soles with wines.

For your dreams and malice deep
Warriors forever do not sleep.

A Text About a Land

Written by Mak Dizdar

Once upon a time a worthy questioner asked:
Forgive me who is and what sir
Where is
Whence and
Whither sir
Prithee  sir
is this
Bosnia
The questioned swiftly replied in this wise:
Forgive me there once was a land sir called Bosnia
A fasting a frosty a
Footsore a drossy a
Land forgive me
That wakes from sleep sir
With a
Defiant
Sneer

From the book: Stone Sleeper
Translation: Francis R Jones

In the Name of…

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

In the name of love
There is less and less love.

In the name of justice
There is less and less justice.

In the name of God
There is less and less God.

In the name of love, justice and God
There is but more fear, pain and blood.

Not in the name of love,
Justice, people and God

But because of those above
That hide behind the name of God.

On the Track of Destiny

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

Don’t wait for me old mother,
Don’t gaze at clock on the wall.
There is no time at all
According to which I could live.

Go to sleep with dreams so mild
As you did when I was but a child.
Let your intuition be driven
By your prayers to me once given.

My life is at five to twelve now.
My spring colors fade somehow.
But to admit this is very hard,
That I might end in the graveyard.

My destiny, my mother, is not
To be happy, to sleep a lot.
Heavy circles in eye-shaped spheres,
I wash away my youth with my tears.

A Draconian Composition

War-weary, mournful victims –
Grim, apocalyptic episodes –
A daily bombs’ roulette –
Insanity in the midst of starvation –
That world’s a Draconian composition –
A survival plea…

Humanity

Darkened colours swirl through
Humanity’s small windows.
Beauty and love umbrellas
Are snapped away by
Blind limousines passing by.

Immigrant’s Story

The pale face of
A clenched immigrant,
Confused and different,
Popping in a xenophobic mix
And useless, is caught
In the labyrinth of own lies.

Written by Nada B. M.

The Moon and the River

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

What a wonderful sight,
The Moon and river in calm night.
As if all beauties of the Universe
Are poured over the river’s face.

The moon has fallen on the river bad
Its golden beams are greatly shed. 
Restless waters glow in the river
Like the lovers amid love’s fever.

Silver shining water waves
Meet with kisses of the pearls.
Does it seem to me or do I only guess
That love’s sigh came out of the chests.

Under the hot blanket of the night
The love couple separated at site.
The white clouds and birds of prey
Announced the soon-to-be day.

July the Eleventh

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

There are poems that cannot endure words
Because words are often so frail.

So weak are my rhymes written in pain
To transfer my pain on paper plain.

But this is not poem of pain
This is a poem of truth,
And the truth, only the truth
Can alleviate true pain!

The truth that should be known 
And must be known!
People lack the knowledge of our pain,
As Sahara does rain,
Of the mothers’ cry
On the Eleventh of July.

The Eleventh of July.

New York’s September the Eleventh
Is known to all on the Earth.

Let them know!
They should know!
The day when many Americans died
And when we, Bosnians, together
With American mothers, and sisters cried.
And who knows about Bosnian
July the Eleventh?!
Who knows about Srebrenica?!
Who cares for our mothers, sisters,
Brothers, children?
Who brokenheartedly mourns
Bosnia’s July the Eleventh
At Srebrenica?!

Who knows?

We who know the full truth
Must not forget it, forever.
Those who do not know,
Let them now know!

In the year 1995 of Our Lord,
On the Eleventh day of July,
And a few days more,
In Srebrenica,
In Europe,
Ten thousand of Bosnian Muslims
Were murdered by merciless monsters.

For only a couple of days,
To kill ten thousand Bosnian Muslims
In such a brutal ways.

Unhappy People

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

I found myself at the dawn of a new day,
And that might have been enough
To deem myself a happy one.

It appeared that I had a nice night
One in which I had not overslept.
And that might have been enough
To deem myself a happy one.

This morning I went to have a coffee.
I had enough money.
And that might have been enough
To deem myself a happy one.

That indeed would have been enough
To consider myself a happy one.
If I had not been greeted
By the unhappy ones.

(I wrote this poem on July 24, 1995, while I was having my morning coffee at the “Roxy” café in Munich, and I was inspired by Bosnian refugees who were passing along the street.)

There is Bosnia

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

There is Bosnia and Bosnia shall be,
After bleeding rivers themselves purify,
And canons cease to spit their fire, 
And steel rains forever stop,
And graveyard flowers their heads drop.

There is Bosnia and Bosnia shall be,
Even after desecrated wombs
Cry out the fruits of monstrous deeds,
And when processions of dazed people,
Make fire without the chimney.

There is Bosnia and Bosnia shall be,
Under the sunshine as it used to be,
Its beauty can stop your breath or heart,
When you get an amorous dart,
At evenings with soft music of heavenly rhymes,
Bosnia is and it shall be for all times.

To My Friend

Written by Nermin DONLAGIC

Do you sometimes stop by the quiet inn, like you used to,
And sit at the wooden table in the corner?
Is there anyone there to listen to you intently
While you talk about Buddha and Krishna?

Do you sometimes come to a silent river
To steal an hour from a dreary day?
Can the song that exalts homeland
Still be heard through the late night?

I see you restless in a crowd of drunken idiots,
Who even sober, fly on wings of error.
Why don’t you try to walk the road of truth?
For, you know, it is so hard to be a human
In these cruel and inhuman times.

Where does your unabashed glance wander,
When you pass along the row of burnt houses?
When you see an old man with his eyes full of tears,
Who futilely awaits the return of a dead son?

Do you sometimes rebuke those vile deeds
Of the supposed classmates of our youth?
Many supposed that after they did it 
Their lives would have a happier course.

These hard times of feebleminded people will pass,
Time will diminish their warmongering hue.
Engraved scars will be covered by grass.
But remember, classmate from my youth,
These words, and similar written deeds, will witness
These times, and your misdeeds, in full.