Poetry International Poetry International
Gedicht

Abdel-ilah Salhi

Love front

What we learnt of love was from novels, stories, and poems. With poverty, frustration, and 
narrow horizons we began to fall in love at dreadful ease, and suffer much more easily.
Despite that we clung to that love which has no life and existence outside books.


Defeats in love destroyed many of us, dispersed a lot into vagabondage, and caused many
others to disappear. Despite that, from time to time some warrior appears; a young man in
most cases, waving a tattered flag, mocking the crushing weight of reality, and its bloody
grinding mill. He seems sure that his anguish is more valuable than the Mercedes cars which
besiege his poor girlfriend, and that true feelings are a mortal weapon which it suffices to
draw for the battle to be settled.


We are the disabled victims of this  war, feeling for our scars, meanwhile drinking cheap wine
with anonymous prostitutes in dark pubs, and pitying every young man who surges from the
suburbs of towns riding a gifted poem, and entering the front defenceless.

LOVE FRONT

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LOVE FRONT

Love front

What we learnt of love was from novels, stories, and poems. With poverty, frustration, and 
narrow horizons we began to fall in love at dreadful ease, and suffer much more easily.
Despite that we clung to that love which has no life and existence outside books.


Defeats in love destroyed many of us, dispersed a lot into vagabondage, and caused many
others to disappear. Despite that, from time to time some warrior appears; a young man in
most cases, waving a tattered flag, mocking the crushing weight of reality, and its bloody
grinding mill. He seems sure that his anguish is more valuable than the Mercedes cars which
besiege his poor girlfriend, and that true feelings are a mortal weapon which it suffices to
draw for the battle to be settled.


We are the disabled victims of this  war, feeling for our scars, meanwhile drinking cheap wine
with anonymous prostitutes in dark pubs, and pitying every young man who surges from the
suburbs of towns riding a gifted poem, and entering the front defenceless.
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
Lira fonds
Partners
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