~Above and Beyond~

By WordWulf, 15th Feb 2011 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/1rdi2ge2/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Poetry

~We read about and are preached to about acceptable losses, reasonable expectations, necessary prevention, raids and incursions, looking at the big picture. These and many other clichés are used regularly to justify the bombing of cities, the slaughter of innocents. Maybe there is something…~

~Above and Beyond~

the sky and tears

Children suffering, villages peopled by the ghosts of fresh slaughter, naked gunmen pissing on the edge of dawn, children suffering.

Children playing amongst the carcasses, fighter jets and smart bombs. The maimed stand by, leaning on crutches, they hop like crows, children playing.

Children watching camels and half-tracks , one-handed beggars clapping an arm and gimme! Harsh as bird-speak they jabber and jab, point with the stump of a once-thieving hand, children watching.

Children sleeping whose lives have learned to ally the night where, if luck has provided a handful of crumbs, to hold them close in dark houses with one eye open, await the dawn, children sleeping.

Children alive of moment, of whim, dim providence provides masks for the blind, shoes for the footless, band-aids for the starving, stick-gum handed out by blue-eyed men in khaki, arms at rest
children alive.

Children dying, a dark awareness enters their eyes, replaces their vibrant innocence at once with a yellow pus disease of war and hate. Gods and stick men have denied them, cold steel in their hands,
hot vengeance in their hearts, those whom survive are children dying.

~Tom (WordWulf) Sterner~
~Desired Height~
~REM/Steel Bird~
~Those Without Graves~

Meet the author

WordWulf
Tom Sterner lives in Redding, California and Arvada, Colorado with wife Kathy. He has been published in numerous magazines and on the internet, including Howling Dog Press/Omega, Skyline Literary Review, The Storyteller, and Flashquake. His interne...(more)