Syrians drown in ash and sorrow,
bullets ruin homes and lives
while Asma Al Asad just shops.
She orders shoes, not any shoes
no, Christian-Louboutin with soles of red
to match her husband`s bloody war.

Another governmental war
makes mothers choke on sorrow,
explosives detonate. A child, bright red
from dangling body parts of half-lived lives
is barricaded under ordinary shoes
still stuck to amputated legs near shops

frequented by the dead. These shops
do not exist for Asma- and neither does this war
strange rebels forced on her. She orders shoes
from Paris (tomorrow from Iran) while outside sorrow,
glued to trivial, unimportant lives
disturbs her day. The caviar she tastes is red.

Her husband sends her roses, red
and without thorns from foreign shops
he never enters. He wipes out lives
he faults and blames for Syria's war,
does not know empathy, no sorrow
but transfers oil for Asma’s caviar and shoes.

She prances with these glitzy shoes,
she waltzes, glides on soles of red,
expecting that this tidal wave of sorrow
soon breaks, engulfing funeral shops
she loathes. Asma hates this stinking war,
the growing list of strangers' nameless lives,

those worthless, desperate lives
that dared to dream of lavish shoes
and caviar. It won’t be Asma’s war
and EU sanctions can’t return those drowned in red
in Houla’s torn up shops
filled to the brim with muffled sorrow!

Asma dilly-dallies with caviar, red
like her frilly shoes, all mocking Syrian lives.
Foreign shops deliver all but sorrow.