the crushed skulls

and the

torn-off legs

and the

single shots piercing countless heads

women, men, children
young, old, everyone just a human being

when will we tire of the senseless killing which we keep on impotently seeing

the gaping wounds soaked in blood

dismembered corpses piled high in some humid make-shift shit-stenched mortuary

who will remain to someday write, war itself’s final obituary

for the killing goes on in the name of tribe
faith
race
religion
caste
sect

and the vested interests above all

but who really hears the whimpering sobs of a 4 year old’s call

for her mother, father, brother, sister

as she lies dying, bleeding out like a gutted animal, on the stinging gravel

while we deliberate and engage and while to geneva we always travel

to sign some scraps of papar that merely postpone the killing for a while

while the putrefying carcasses of human beings lie side by side, mile after bloody mile

war is ugly, they tell us

but necessary too

and we go to war for peace

while the generals and the money-men and the politicians drink and dance and screw

war is ugly

it is indeed

but so are we

if we fail to see the humanity stripped away

and peeled off the skin of that 4 year old girl

and if her cries for help we do not heed

war and guns and bombs and the very latest smart nuke

sickens me as it should us all
making us retch and puke

but who gives a fuck about the bomba falling far away

we’ve got chores to do, margarine to buy, and take the family out for the day

war is ugly

so they tell us

while loading the magazines without much of a fuss

war is ugly

and cold and brutal and evil as the hounds of some distant hell

but who gives a fuck for we have sneakers to buy and stocks to sell

war is ugly

but so are you and I

for we remain silent

as the bombs fall incessantly on

out of the open sky

shame on me and shame on us all, that much I believe is true

for our silence in the face of misery is tacit acceptance

and try as we might to innure ourselves

I am as complicit in it all

as are you…