Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Kathy Staudt
Holy Innocents
We will kill their children As they have killed our children Says the voice on the radio From the Middle East I forget which side. Meanwhile Eyes gaze out From newspaper pages, or television screens The eyes of dying children, Of mothers who know what is happening Men gone, homes destroyed, bodies brutalized Their molten grief and anger, defiant, shields Desecrated life .. They seek a human face that will meet this gaze A gaze that will see the faces behind The words we read on the page, hear on the news: Collateral Unintended They are facing down the Crusaders' god, The god of Us and Them, who says I am on your side, against those others. I will crush your enemies Murder their children Support you at all costs Love you. Hate Them.
Where did we lose the God no one owns Who broods over our thriving Like the mother shielding her threatened child Whose fierce judgment speaks Out of these wise eyes?
