Numbers

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GAZA

Numbers

 

Numbers are not people

They do not bleed

They do not suffer

Their bones are not brittle

Their bodies do not break

 

Numbers are not people

But like words they tell a story

They tell ten thousand stories in Gaza

There are stories about schools

There are stories about teachers

There are stories about students

There are stories about children

Too young to go to school

 

There are stories about doctors

There are stories about nurses

There are stories about patients

There are stories about loss

 

Picture in your mind ten thousand stories

Hear them in your own voice

Feel them in your heart

Every one of them a tragedy

Every one a mother’s tears

Every one a father’s rage

 

Every one of them a vow of vengeance

Every one a life that won’t be lived

A memory that never fades

A trail of tears forever

 

No numbers are not people

But people become numbers in war

This war must come to an end

For humanity to be restored

 

 

Heartless (Ode to Putin)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS

 

Heartless

 

The man who does not blink an eye

Inflicting pain upon another

The woman who breaks others’ hearts

She has never found her own

The lonely child without a conscience

Who will never understand

The one who takes pleasure in others’ misfortune

The doctor who experiments upon the helpless

The trigger man for the mob

The singer who strikes every note

But never sheds a tear

The assassin who hits his mark from

A thousand paces

The general who orders his soldiers into

A hopeless battle

The commander who goes to war

To satisfy his ego

 

There are doubtless those who have no heart

The eternal question is:

Were they born heartless or

Did they lose it somewhere along the way?

We must hope it is the latter

For then they might find it again

But you cannot find what has never been

Untold Casualties of War

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: WAR

 

Untold Casualties of War

Two tours in Iraq

Two tours too many

The carnage he witnessed

The carnage he inflicted

Tore a hole in his heart

Large enough for his soul to slip through

Large enough to bury the man he was

 

His friends and family said he was okay

They said they thought he was okay

But he was not okay

He was never okay

They should have known

They did know

They didn’t want to know

The young man they gave to war

Came back filled with flames

Teeming with rage and ready to implode

 

One day for some reason nobody knows

The building rage inside exploded

His victims didn’t know

They never saw it coming

A sudden burst of gunfire

A flash of blood and darkness

A rumbling chaos and silence

 

He was his last victim

An untold casualty of war