SBS Television (Australia) recently aired "Uncle Sam and the Bosnian Dream", a documentary about a Bosnian-American man called Semir Osmanagic, and his "discovery" of pyramids in the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This poem is about men such as Semir, their exploatition of a wounded land and its people, shaken with a recent war. It's also about war criminals of whom many are still at large, who have in their own ruthless ways managed to cast a spell on neighbours and friends, communities that have for hundreds of years depended on one another.
Rather than physical objects, pyramids of Bosnia are a symbol of manipulation people of this region have endured and continue to endure to this day. They are a symbol of petty criminals, profiteers and war mongers.
Bosnian Pyramids
Your people have fought
Like two French lovers,
Quarrelled over lunch and
At dinner made up again.
And while you looked away
In those moments of despair,
Little men have come
To tell your people proud,
To write a history
That will tell the world aloud:
Thy is the oldest nation
Never mind the present moment,
Ignore the sorrows!
And dig the burrows!
Grab the history for its sake
Lest they say - they are fake!
Pay no heed to the
World around you
To your waters, air and soils
With your toils dig on further.
Yourself in there...
by Z. Basic
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