Appointment in Samarra
by David Ray
“An appointment in Samarra”
meant that you could not
fool Mr. Death, that you
flew to Samarra to avoid
him in Paris or Chicago,
but ran into him there
where all along he intended
to find you, had planned it
from day one. I find
Samarra on the map now,
not far from the Tigris
and Euphrates, the lazy
rivers of Eden, where
Mr. Death has much help
fulfilling his quota.
© 2004 David Ray. All Rights Reserved.
from The Death of Sardanapalus and Other Poems of the Iraq Wars (Howling Dog Press)
Image from “Modern Book Illustrators and Their Work”, 1914 via Openclipart on a Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Public Domain License.