By Martin Falatic
Written 1994-03-02
Revised 1997-03-19

It is night now...
     I listen to the soft rain,
          the loud, harsh thunder.
I snatch my sleep like old crusts of bread:
     small bites, barely adequate...
But I survive.
When I cannot sleep, I watch the flashes in the distance:
     The fiery light sometimes fills the sky,
          followed closely by that awful sound,
          stunning me, filling me with dread.
The cry of a child echoes through the streets below,
     the hollow voice of terror in a land of chaos.
I too am little more than a child, but I am strong,
     I do not fear the storm...
          (I try not to shudder so)

The rain might end, the moon could show its face
     while the stars, a thousand lifetimes away,
     watch over my fitful slumber.
But the thunder... the thunder is never-ending.
     The thunder of my heart beating so nervously
     the thunder that shakes my home, my world,
     my prison.
     the thunder of guns in the distance,
          raining death on us all, one shot at a time.
     A person here, a family there...
          Death knows no boundaries.
Here reigns the thunder of hate,
     the thunder of war,
          the thunder of Bosnia.