What is this that is surfacing?

Hitler, Rwanda, genocide, mysterious gases, sulphur,

Explosive devices, atomic bombs, evil scientists,

White masks, innocent civilians abandoned or murdered?

Young children, girls, boys, mothers, fathers, child soldiers,

God’s children?

Battlefields, a nightmarish wonderland,

Child soldiers, prizewinning journalists and guns -

Mass graves stick out like sore thumbs,

Blisters, sticky fingers caught in the jam tin.

This is heartbreak, this is warfare.

 

This is flotsam and jetsam.

It makes no sense at all.

This rape, this maiming and this killing all in the name of war.

How soon we forget the hopeless and the pathetic helpless

In newspapers and news bulletins at night, in the morning

We stare deaf, dumb and blind, sometimes furious,

Sometimes passive, angry, crazy-mad, morose, feeling bereft,

Sometimes we look away, can’t look anymore we are tired and sad,

What do we say to the crippled and the disabled?

We can’t wait to blame government diplomacy

Those insensitive brutes – men and women - we voted for

 

In the name of beauty, freedom, integrity, liberty, fairness and decency.

They lied to us through rotting, stained yellow or white or gold teeth,

Through dentures, gummy, fake grins, fake identities,

Wished they could take up some sought of other personality,

Rich American or Middle Eastern sheikh,

They sate their thirst with fine wines and their appetites

With heavenly meats served with congealed gravies or orange-pink fish

I wish I was gone, gone, gone, that my desperation was no longer

Clasping on me like a daring demon, at my invisible voice, at my throat

Clawing desperately on my sanity in dappling sunlight, at my honesty

War is an insatiable, terrifying and corrupt monster and contributes

 

Nothing to the closed state of mind

to the dapper and dashing boy soldiers it feeds solemnly

Truly what a disgusting and unpleasant waste

of the beauty, purity and innocence of youth

It leaves a bitter, unclean and sour taste in my mouth

Who cleans up the filth in the minds and the mess the bombs leave behind?

Who continues to say their prayers at night and who doesn’t?

Who gets left behind, gunned down, called a killer, blown to smithereens?

Who puts these small fragments, these pieces back together again and keep them safe?

What stance do good parents take to cover their children’s eyes and protect them?

Who marches, protests, holds up placards, risks limbs? Who covets life if no one’s left?