Book Warm
shelling a city library
during a war
and burning
all the books in it
you could call that
a crime
because books hold
the stories of the people
who wrote them
and by destroying
the books
you are erasing
the history
of those people
but the real crime
is to keep the war
going
long enough
so the winter comes
and then people
have to plunder
their own city
libraries
for warmth
they have to burn
the books
they have been
collecting
for decades
in their homes
for an hour of
a fire that will
cook their food
or warm their
hands
that’s the less
obvious but
not necessarily
the less traumatizing
crime
having children burn
comic books they have
been collecting
their entire
lives
those are just some
of the crimes
no one answers for
when the war is over
if you’ve never burned
a book in your life
you don’t really know
how cold this world
can actually
get
SAFETY FIRST!
before the war
when we were kids we would go
to rallies of nationalist parties
and carry the federalist flags
and chant slogans of
brotherhood & unity
as soon as they realized
what we were doing
they would start chasing us
adult men chasing children
cussing us out with curse words
we did not know existed
in our language
we’d jump fences
and climb walls
almost every time
all of us would get away
but here and there
some of us would get
caught and while the
adults did not forget
that we were children
they also did not forget
how angry we made them
they took their anger out
on whomever they got
their hands on
I went to a rally yesterday
it was a protest against
the reckless, incompetent,
rich taking over the federal
government
it was a sunny Saturday
25,000 people showed up
with signs and shirts and
upside-down American flags
it felt like a performative
exhibit of tongue-in-cheek
slogans and self-
righteousness
nobody was afraid
nobody made
anyone angry
25,000 people
in a city of 750,000
on a lawn by a
picturesque fountain
a real protest would
bring 250,000 people
out on the streets
a real protest would
disrupt something
a real protest would
make someone angry
and someone else
afraid
I was with friends and
halfway through it
we decided to go
to my place and
have drinks we
drank a lot that day
everyone had
their own reasons
for drinking
that much
mine being that
I realized how
three decades ago
on the eve of a civil war
on the mountainous Balkans
7 Bosnian boys took
more risks on a weekly
basis than 25,000
American adults could
muster on one sunny
afternoon as everything
continues to be on fire
burning like a soul
of a sinner
25,000 people
don’t know any better
than to dance around
the fountain
that had been
shut off
for safety
reasons
anyway
Dario Cvencek is an immigrant poet from the Balkans. He started writing poetry in high school, inspired by his growing up during the Bosnian War in the 1990s, and his subsequent experiences as a refugee of war in Germany and the United States. In his poems, he explores the themes of war, trauma, healing, identity, gun violence, and immigration. His work has appeared in Rising Phoenix Review, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, Ancient Tech News, Beyond Words Magazine, ANARKISS Magazine, and others. “PTSD Martini” (Carbonation Press, 2025) is his first full-length collection of poetry. He lives and works in Seattle, WA.
