The Tourist

Mosaic of leftovers.


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(4th draft)


CRW 315 - Lyric Essay
January 21, 2009


The Mythic Tourist
Holiday Inn, Sarajevo, June 1993


—Sarajevo is a city in the mythic land of Jugoslavia.

—No one thinks much about Sarajevo

until some damn fool steps out from a café and shoots an archduke.

—Sarajevo is culturally and religiously progressive:

Muslim men drink in the same pub as women.

—Sarajevo is in the unfortunate younger child,

stuck between two bickering siblings.

—Karl Marx wrote that Sarajevo is littered with ethnic trash.

—In Sarajevo, the question,

where are you from?

holds dire consequence.

—Neighbors ask it from the other side of a fence.

—A century after Marx, General Mladić hopes to cleanse that trash.

—In Sarajevo, there is a game called Bosnian Roulette.

It involves dodging sniper bullets to reach a water spigot.

Some days, the spigot even works.

—Winners receive a drink of water.

—Everyone who plays Bosnian Roulette is undefeated.

—The only flight service to Sarajevo is Maybe Airlines;

maybe it will fly in today;
maybe it will be on time;
maybe it will be shot down.

Maybe you'll get back out again.

—Sarajevo produces more history than it can consume. ^{[Winston Churchill]}

—History not being very nutritious,

Sarajevans grow hungry for for bread and water.

—Sarajevan is damn silly; just ask Otto and the Hapsburgs.

—Sarajevo is protected by UNPROFOR—

—a magical alliance of disinterested warriors.

—The UNPROFOR guards look like Smurfs,

wearing powder blue helmets and driving shiny white trucks.

—The little Smurfs eat lunches of potted shrimp and foie gras,

with a desert of fresh-baked sweetbreads.

Hungry Sarajevans decline invitations to eat the leftovers;

it is summertime, and they need to watch their figures

in case they have a chance to go to the beach.

—Facing Mecca,

Muslim men and women raise their glasses together
while the snipers in the hills

prepare another round.

—Thank you for choosing Maybe Airlines.

—His desk out of range, Papa Smurf has little interest in Sarajevo.

—Advertisement Slogans for Sarajevean Tourism:

Come to Sunny Sarajevo! See our Public Gallows Museum!

Visit Our No-Vacancy Graveyards & 24-hour Atrocity Exhibit!

—Rose bouquets explode across concrete sidewalks.

Thorny bodies get bunched by the dozen.

—In the empty bread market,

Sarajevans smile at the UNPROFOR and think,

How lucky we are to be guarded by Smurfs.

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