NaPoWriMo 15/30: Writing an anti-war poem

Whew.  This was a little exhausting to write.  It needs work, but I'm liking the concept.

When writing an anti-war poem

It’s important to be abstract.

10 thousand soldiers killed.

Put on their uniform

To do their duty.

10 thousand men and women.

Try not to think of them as mothers,

Fathers, brothers, sisters,

The family opening the letter

Typed with flawless political -correctness

And how the world feels when it’s taken out from under you.

150 thousand civilians killed.

Do not think of them as children

A boy herding animals,

Ordered to put his hands up.

The feeling of incomprehension

Tearing one, two, three.

Try not to think

Of how sand feels

When it mixes with blood.

When writing a anti-war poem,

Be historical.

45,000 soldiers in Vietnam.

60,000 names on the memorial.

200,000 suffering from Gulf War Syndrome,

A disease with so many symptoms,

Doctors named it after the only thing they knew:

What caused it.

Be historical.

Try not to recall Gulf War Syndrome

Was called Shell-shocked

Is called medically unexplained illness.

Try not to think how many hands held that AK-47

How the only thing that changes

Is who the barrel aims at.

How bullet wounds look the same.

How our bodies are not designed to throw grenades

Or to receive them.

When writing a anti-war poem,

It helps to have someone to blame.

The Nixons, the Bushes, the Clintons, the Bushes,

The Obamas, hopeless and changeless.

Stopping military losses,

But not stopping the loss of military.

Blame the generals who order the Colonel

Who order the Captain

Who order the Lieutenant

Who order the Sargeant.

Blame the soldier who poses with the dead civilian,

Smile as demented as gun fights,

Blame the soldier holding the camera,

Waiting for his turn.

Don’t think of their family raising them,

Their fathers with stories of lesser peoples,

Their commanders enforcing the belief

That killing is okay.

When writing an anti-war poem,

Be specific.

Avoid human nature,

That we made guns to keep us safe

And have never been less secure.

That we manufacture murder,

That the more bombs we make

The more we have to drop.

When writing an anti-war poem

It’s important to end with a solution.

An unjust war.

As if war can be just.

Because once you stop talking about the war.

Things begin to get complicated.