WAR WOUNDS : Kujtim R Hajdari

WAR WOUNDS

Kujtim R Hajdari

The sky has lost its blue to smoke and flame,  

It flinches from the thunder—struck with lightning’s wounds;  

Steel hawk, that circles, seeking only blood’s tame,  

It plants its iron into the earth and breaks hearts that lose.  

The earth convulses, weeping like a panicked heart at flight,  

Its quiet lullabies are swallowed into the dark forevermore;  

Children who fall and turn to wails and elegiac blight,  

Mothers who wait in pain wipe silent tears across the sore.  

The wind combs grass with teeth of bloodied steel,  

And finds its toys where roots should have been growing, softly, green;  

The earth has lost the sweet perfume of seasonal appeal,  

From children’s tears, from mothers’ cries, from broken ribs unclean.  

This is what war brings.

(Kujtim R Hajdari is an Albanian poet, writer, translator, critic, and publisher who writes in Albanian, Italian, and English, and is currently based in the USA. A recipient of the International Impact Book Award (2024) and a finalist for Author of the Year (Hollywood, 2025) for Through the Waves of Life, he has published 18 poetry collections, 4 novels, 3 novellas, and 2 critical works. His writings appear in over 270 anthologies and more than 25 countries, and he is also the publisher of the global anthology All Together.)