How To Kill A Child

Gold cherry

By Kilb50

Mon, 21 Jul 2014
  • 4828 reads
12 comments
 

Look. You can see one over there
standing in the rubble - shoeless, voiceless,
tainted at birth.

Is it a boy ? Or a girl ? It does not matter.
Just raise your gun and aim, preferably at the head,
then slowly squeeze the trigger
and fire.

See ? Not difficult at all. The child falls
in an instant. It was a clean kill.
Well done. Congratulate yourself for
being humane...

Again, near that bombed-out building.
Several emerge, holding white rags, scampering
over smouldering bricks.
They scream. They cry.
They are filthy - not like ours.

Now swing the turret of your tank,
measure the range, depress the large red button
and the missile will be released.
Remember to protect your ears!
There will be a rush of air and gas,
a boom - sonic almost - and now they are gone.
Easy if you know how.

The children you kill
will be retrieved, wrapped in cloth,
and deposited without ceremony
into the dry red earth.

While this happens I suggest
you take a moment for yourself,
sit beside your tank, eat and drink,
give thanks to your god,
because killing children can be hard work
and there are many, many left.

They stand in the rubble
shoeless, voiceless, tainted at birth
staring, unfeeling
(not like ours).

They are dead inside, they scream, they cry.
And let me warn you: they are eager
to grow old and remember.

Certificate 15
Poem

Comments

Submitted by Bee on

Powerful writing!

Bee

Submitted by Kilb50 on

Thank you Bee. This is a former POW, originally written during the 2012 siege of Aleppo. However, given the recent events in Gaza, I felt a need to re-post with a new by-line.

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

 

Submitted by tcook on

I realised that it is a re-post - I remembered it from times gone by but if ever there was a need to see it again then it's today.

 

 

Submitted by Kilb50 on

Thanks Tony - appreciated...and good to hear from you. Hope all is well.

 

Submitted by blighters rock on

Scintillating coldness in the voice here. Matchstick missiles traded for tower-demolishing bombs is no war; it's the massacre they crave and pray for. Their bloodlust will only be stopped by UN intervention. Given that they're one and the same, they're afforded carte blanche to kill and maim at their satanic will. Throwing stones at snipers with their sights locked onto them is like defenceless children fending off monsters with sweeps. Powerful poem, Kilb. Thank you.

 

Submitted by tcook on

All is very well with me. I'm back in the hot seat for the next six weeks whilst Luke and Anna are on honeymoon in the USA so you'll just have to grin and bear it!

Submitted by scratch on

I read this poem originally on adld's account:

http://www.abctales.com/story/adld/how-kill-child

I assume that is another account belonging to you Kilb?

I'm quite old now - or at least older than I used to be - I can't ever remember a period for the world like this in my life.  I feel disenfranchised, emasculated and irrelevant in light of the global insatiability for power, domination and wealth.

We are faced with catastrophe.   The ones who should and are able be doing something to stop these things share a responsibility for causing them.  

 

Submitted by adld on

i've got no idea how this got onto my account -  it expresses the anger we all feel at these events in a direct and powerful and direct way and is a great piece of work but  i was very surprises when i thought I was editing a verse abour half-drunk bars and found myself in a war zone! 

adld

Submitted by Ed Crane on

Well said Kilb.

Seems the 'victims' of the holocaust learned nothing except how to do the same. As it suggests in the Old Testament, The 'Children of God' will repeat their mistakes over and over.

 

 

Submitted by VeraClark on

Kilb, this is the kind of shattering poem that you want to make people read, people everywhere, it's bold and persuasive and devastating.

 

 

Submitted by Kilb50 on

Vera, Ed, scratch, blighters - many thanks for your comments. Scratch - I think that was a glitch. I also noticed the poem came up under adid at first posting.

 

Submitted by scratch on

Yes, that seems to be the case Kilb.  Wonderful, affecting and acutely poignant poem.  The world needs people to be able to write poetry like this.  Those that do hold a mirror to provide us with our horrific reflection.