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Last Look

They scatter me over the solemn ground. They wipe my death on the walls before my child’s eyes. My body is lifted from me and never returned. My eyes move to my child as the soil swallows my limbs.

This, my death, pays no tribute, serves no purpose, only brings my child to hatred. Maybe that’s it- Teach children to kill, vengeance, one tormentor spent, sold for oil, this won’t wash away to befall something better.

I descend with a last look at my child, eyes swathed in dread following me down, an ashen face and vacant eyes pleading as I pass beneath the surface observing the insipid reach of hatred.

I know war only honors the things of beasts as I am grown in the ground like a seed for tomorrow.


© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
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Comments

  1. QUASAR9February 9, 2008 at 7:58 PM

    Does it ever get any better?
    Or is it simply that sometimes there is just a lull ...

    maybe it had to do with the seasons
    winter, spring, summer, and fall

    ReplyDelete
  2. betmoFebruary 9, 2008 at 8:12 PM

    afghanistan too. any place we touch. and bill kristol is saying that white women are a problem.

    ReplyDelete
  3. thepoetrymanFebruary 10, 2008 at 3:52 PM

    quasar9,
    It will remain thus until we vacate the premises in complete fashion.

    betmo,
    It seems we've the magic in our grimy, oily fingers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Case WagenvoodFebruary 11, 2008 at 4:31 PM

    Religion's fatal paradox is the ease with which a message of love and compassion can curdle into one of abject horror.

    ReplyDelete
  5. thepoetrymanFebruary 11, 2008 at 10:14 PM

    Case,
    And when it curdles it leaves an odor that lingers for what seems like a lifetime.

    ReplyDelete
  6. azgoddessFebruary 13, 2008 at 1:00 PM

    a year ago we heard whisperings of this

    5 years ago it wasn't spoken of

    10 years ago - the average American didn't know where Iraq was

    being things as they are - we know - we see - we cry out for this to stop

    gives me hope...

    ReplyDelete
  7. thepoetrymanFebruary 13, 2008 at 1:32 PM

    az,
    These stories will meet their whispered fate as mere sidenotes of history.

    ReplyDelete

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