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When you’ve spent your days
Scooping up viscera
Hosing down gore
When you’ve spent your nights
Huddled with the others
Waiting for the next shell to hit your trench
When it’s them or you
So you pull the trigger
And fear to miss more than you fear to hit
And you want to dream about peace
But all you see when you close your eyes
Is the face of that kid dead in the rubble
And the yielding pressure of her body underfoot
Before you realized what, in the haze, you had stumbled over.
When food tastes like water
Water tastes like worms
And heavy smells permeate
Gun oil, swamp foot, metal blood
When all this smells like home
Then
You’ll understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miles Away

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In another country today

Someone is bent over a dead body

In another country today

Broken buildings and scrambles for water

Miles away from where we are happy

We are devastated.

 

Merry Christmas, children

Open your presents

And know how much you are loved.

Your parents, your family, everyone is here

Eat until we are sick

Laugh together until we cry

This is the best way to live

 

It’s a lucky day, children

We found a scrap of bread. Take my share

And know how much you are loved.

Unsure where your father is, your siblings

Sick from not eating

Never let them see you cry

This is the only way to survive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Against the Next War

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In response to CafePhilos’s call to make peace viral. A noble effort, and worth a try. Please give his post a read.

Trying to do a slam-style poem. I really hope the audio turned out OK on this. Apologies if it’s too quiet, I’m still figuring out how to make videos.

 

 

 

If I imagine them
Taking my brother away to war

I shatter.

I don’t want to lose anyone.
Especially not to something as stupid
As war.

Maybe you like the idea of war
Because you’ve confused real life with action movies.
Maybe you hate another group of people for what they have done.
I can’t convince you to forgive another’s atrocities
That is something you must grow into on your own.
But I can beg you this:

When dogs of war bark
Don’t feed them.
You will be told it is the honorable thing
To die for your country.
You will be told you have enemies abroad
Monsters in human flesh.
But the monsters are in your back yard
Baying for blood.
Don’t
feed
them.
You will be told
That if you love your family
You will abandon it
And submit yourself to the state.
Give up your mind, body, and soul
To be consumed.
Don’t feed them.
You will be called weak
You will be called subversive
You will be stamped
Kicked
Drowned
Thrown into jail
Dumped in the gutter.
Still,
don’t feed them.
They will scream about the chaos
Unleashed in the world
They will plead for your aid
They will put weeping women before you
They will show you the bodies of children
They will appeal to your humanity.
But if you join them
You become the monster.
You will rape the women
You will bomb the children
You will force them all into the machines.
Don’t feed them.
They offer you money
Insurance for your families
Early retirement.
Ask your wife how she feels
When you go abroad.
She may smile then, proud and supportive,
But when she gets the letter,
Insurance will be a cold comfort
A reminder
That her loved one was eaten alive.
Don’t feed them.
The politicians get fatter.
The generals get fatter.
Our fearless leaders
Have little to lose.
What is noble
About sacrificing yourself for these people?
Are they so wise, so just?
They have enough.
Don’t feed them.