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