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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)