Poem by Sam Hamod: For Our Children

The Obamas in Africa at the Door of No Return

For Our Children

why is it easier

to spill the blood

of a Pakistani or Wazirstani child,

without tears, but with

pride, while

shedding tears, words of sorrow and anger

for a child killed in Newtown, USA

why should there  be blood

of any child spilled

for any reason

by anyone

at any time

why were the children

of Falluajah, in Iraq

smashed in their beds

by firebombing missiles,

jets, tanks

why do the children of Gaza

suffer endless airstrikes

from Israeli planes, burning

their flesh, their blood boiling

as they die, or the bright and shiny

cluster bombs left by the Israelis

in southern Lebanon, so that children

might think of themselves as play

as they exploded in their hands

and what of the wedding parties

in Afghanistan, men, women

and children drone bombed into pieces

because someone was told, he was only

doing his duty, while Obama and Bush

feasted on American beef and pig, even

considering giving these cyberkillers

“medals for combat, “

words on a page

or even protests by the hundreds

of thousands seem to have no effect

when it comes to bombing children,

especially if they are not of your country,

at least not in the minds

or hearts of  Bush, Obama, Truman or Churchill,

they have tears, as do the millions in America

and England only when it’s their children--

somehow

someone forgot to mention to them

that all children, are the children

of all of us

their time of innocence

and life is to be preserved, not

destroyed, not burned to death

as they were in Dresden and Cologne,

 in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Waziristan, or Mogadishu,

Fallujah or Basra—with no evidence against them,

having committed no crimes,

with no trial, not even tears from our presidents,

as they award medals to their generals, and

 though they succeed

in killing children, their campaigns fail, but

that is of no matter,  they still crow

as craven ravens of death of how they

have destroyed the enemy,  in each child

but we forget about them in America

they are so far away in space or time

and we hear more about our movie

or singing stars and their philandering lives,

but children have no money or power

at times, at early morning,

I wonder

if there will not be battalions of

ghost children

speaking dozens of languages

who will join hands

spirits

descend upon

Obama, Bush, Clinton, Sharon, Truman, Churchill,

and all their generals of land and air,

and take them away,downward

into another sphere

or will it be the children

of Obama who will someday

realize what their father did

to other children,  while he beamed

at his two young, living and healthy daughters, while

ordering another strike, another strike, another

strike, another strike, and another

without  evidence, without  trial,  just

making his decisions

in his usual vacuum of suspicion, where

like noise, there is no telling if it’s purely noise

or some new type of escape

some pretense of music,  just as the songs

of missiles and drones lull people hypnotically like Cybele,

toward the rocks of their fate,

where someday, they will look

in a mirror

and not believe

the horror they have done

c: sam hamod, 7.3.13

-- 

drsamhamod@gmail.com

dr. sam hamod, editor, www.contemporaryworldliterature.com

                        editor, www.todaysalternativenews.com