Syria by Lawrence Joseph

Syria

 

And when, then, the imagination is transmogrified

in circles of hatred, circles of vengeance

and killing, of stealing and deceit? Behind

the global imperia is the interrogation cell. It’s not

a good story. Neither the Red Crescent

nor journalists are permitted entry, the women tell

how men and boys are separated, taken in buses

and never seen again, tanks in the streets

with machine guns with no shells in the barrels

because the army fears that those who will use them

might defect. Who knows what has happened,

what is happening, what will happen? God knows.

God knows everything. The boy? He is much more

than Mafia; he, and his, own the country. His militias

will fight to the death if for no other reason than

if he’s overthrown they will be killed, too. “Iraq,

you remember Iraq, don’t you?” she shouts,

a refugee. Her English is good. Reached via Skype,

she speaks anonymously, afraid of repercussions.

“You won’t believe what I have seen”—her voice

lowered almost to a whisper—“a decapitated 

body with a dog’s head sewn on it, for example.”

Yes, I know, it’s much more complicated than that.

“It’s the arena right now where the major players are,”

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs concludes

his exclusive CNN interview. Dagestan—its province

in the North Caucasus—is what the Russians compare

it to, warring clans, sects; Lebanese-like civil war

will break out and spread across the region. Online,

a report—Beirut, the Associated Press—

this morning, “28 minutes ago. 4 Said to Be Dead

at Syrian University,” one Samer Qawass,

thrown, it is said, by pro-regime students

out of the fifth-floor window of his dormitory room,

dying instantly from the fall.