We promised.

“We will remember you!”

How quickly we forget.

Their cries of anguish echo through time,

cursing wars glorified by books, statues and poems.

Cries that fall on deaf ears.

Their deaths made meaningless,

by greed, foolishness and revenge.

 

Tell us, you who would wage war.

Tell us, what fighting solves?

Tell us what is gained by the death of men?

Tell us what is gained by killing women and children?

Can we repair them with chewing gum?

Bombs can be guided to hit targets

they also hit the innocent.

 

The modern “war phrase” for,

injuring, flaying, dismembering,

disemboweling, blinding, deafening

beheading, shattering, crushing,

disfiguring, maiming and killing,

is, collateral damage.

How convenient, how hypocritical!

That phrase is penned in the blood

of fountains, spraying gore from

slashed throats and severed arteries!

 

Have we learnt so little in all this time?

Have not enough gouts of blood and

searing tears been shed, for so little?

Have we no understanding?

Have we no humanity?

Have we no shame?

 
 

David Garlick, Victoria, February, 2003