Born to Strife and Contention

Hamas Hangs Children to Act as Human Shields

when will and passion are removed,
when resistance double-talk
is branded onto never-ending anxiety,
when determination and satisfaction
are as fundamental as food,
a mind-blowing similitude is imprinted
of one’s self crawling over pulverized concrete,
as the gnawing sound of military boots
carries out abductions for victims
headed toward open graves.

why make weapons of destruction,
if not to inaugurate a bloody war,
to spate abuse and death by genocide,
to create statistics of shelved body parts
and to encourage irrational ideology?

chilling to the teeth,
tranquil in scorching sun,
courage is to be remembered.
dogmas and –isms draw us
into the non-poetry of decomposition.
coexistence mutates into an abstract,
bipolar state of observance and malevolence.

when level-headed ethics never prevail,
and macho men rampage with sincerity,
madness undermines every rational practice
of benignity and simultaneity.

left untenanted, in our public world,
impotent diplomatic development
extorts us to applaud like a game show audience.

when the statistical death count,
and the itemizing of landing points,
and the remembrance of range
and the particularization of cultural transformations
is so unlimited that no one can distinguish
between the beginnings and the end of combat,
then puerile decapitation shall fail to enrage.

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Written for:

Poetics – War Poetry

Today, Gabriella prompts a war poem.

Image credits: HAMAS TERRORISTS USE CHILDREN AS HUMAN SHIELDS IN GAZA In Stand Up For The Truth