#warcrimes
I wonder where they wrote my name
and whether it was engraved
or casually noted in pen.
How long would it take
to write the names
of every dutiful taxpayer
along a sleek metal frame?
Or did they write them somewhere inside?
Like the first page of a poetry anthology
where they list
contributors—
name
after name
after name,
yours
and mine.
But one hundred and seventy-five little girls
didn’t have time
to flip through a shiny volume
picking the rhymes they liked.
Still, I wonder if one of them
might have spotted my name—
scrawled on shrapnel,
a split-second vision
before her pink backpack was thrown.
I can’t get that picture out of my mind
Of all the little backpacks piled
and the blood.
As a mother, I would have liked
to send those little girls a song
on lined paper,
Perhaps carried by a homing pigeon
Or a dove.
They might have opened it in class
and said,
Look, teacher, look —
A mother from somewhere far away
sends us love.
But the war fiends take our names—
the names our children call us,
the names our mothers whispered
to us in the dark,
our hearts, our souls,
and they write them like a blasphemous edict
on the cold body
of a Tomahawk
So that when another mother bends
to cradle
only empty space,
I know
it is my fault.
Mar 12
Mar 12, 2026 at 11:58 AM UTC
"Special Military Operation"
"Kinetic Strikes"
We know it's ******
Some people's heads need to be on pikes.
Dec 1, 2025
Dec 1, 2025 at 11:25 PM UTC
I’m a hard-hearted woman;
I’ve seen too much of life.
I’ve seen the conflict, I’ve seen the strife.
I’ve seen the kindergarten
with its bombed-out walls.
And I know that your tax dollars
paid for it all.
Killing people in their homes,
in their hospitals, and schools,
was outlawed by the world
after World War II.
Do you need to question why
it breaks all the rules?
Putting people into camps,
and bulldozing where they lived--
so you can steal their land--
is a crime I can’t forgive.
There has to be one Law
for us all, on this planet.
There is no such thing as justice
if everyone can’t have it.
Your people aren’t special,
and no, they’re not “Chosen.”
They’re grandiose fanatics,
shooting, bombing and
bulldozing.
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 11:14 PM UTC
We **** by pushing a button.
WE DIE RUNNING FOR COVER.
We are fighting for our country.
WE ARE FIGHTING FOR A COUNTRY
Our sons fear deployment.
OUR CHILDREN FEAR BOMBARDMENT.
We bury our dead in the national cemetery.
WE DISCOVERED A MASS GRAVE.
Our war is raising the national deficit.
OUR MARKETS HAVE NO FOOD FOR SALE.
We proudly display our flag.
WE'VE BEEN ARRESTED FOR DISPLAYING OUR FLAG.
Our mothers grieve for their sons.
OUR PEOPLE GRIEVE FOR THEIR VILLAGES.
When will our soldiers return?
I WATCHED MY HOUSE BURN.
Our son came home in a coffin on a plane.
WE BURIED A PIECE OF FLESH THAT WE GAVE A NAME.
We saluted the soldiers marching in uniform.
OUR SOLDIERS DRESS LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.
We carefully weighed the costs and benefits.
WE DECIDED THERE WAS NOTHING TO LOSE.
Oct 22, 2016
Oct 22, 2016 at 8:43 PM UTC
**My mind is a totalitarian regime.
I build up walls, paranoia, panopticon. (And to me, Denmark is a prison.)
Keep the voices, the evils of the world out.
An ideology, power, purpose,
Convinces me of the diseases, the deviants,
That risks an illusion to be shattered.
I am my own dictator, hail.
I control words—words are power—
I write my own narratives, make my own excuses,
Create heroines and gods to populate the prison walls. (*He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about his Father’s business, the service of a vast, ****** and meretricious beauty.*)
I rewrite constellations, make them smaller,
Build babels, buying more time.
I tell that amnesiac blackness: that it cannot hurt me; it can’t touch me.
Those labyrinthian libraries of sky charts and lovely flower dictionaries, rooms of polychromatic paintings, which I gathered with gayety as a child—I’m still a child—I haul into the fire,
Ignorant wretch.
We live a part of a global economy, where inclusivity and transparency criticize, perfect.
I can’t stand the critics, I cry, ******
Condemn them to death by a thousand cuts,
Slicing and dicing, I can hear their silent pleas,
They speak to me, You are loved, Let your family in, Please stop
Please please please stop please stop stop stop speak to please stop speak to me
Horrible hungry faces, they don’t cry as I peal skin from bone,
With shards I crush those voices, with glass, broken mirrors,
Me to speak stop please to speak stop stop stop please stop please please please
Break down the walls,
why should you die before your time?
An open market is prone to crisis,
These newcomers, it only takes one to break your heart.
Things with merit are gems; scarcity creates value.
Enjoy the labour of love and life, it is a gift of God,
Dance under pixel skies, they **** pride, ****
Open the floodgates, the dictatorship crumbles and crumples under the weight of these tired eyes
That see light rushing out from the cell window as visions and vicissitudes
A cry from the streets outside
The end is nigh, Night is coming!
One cannot sleep with starry skies in the eyes.
Stay awake, because the guards are coming,
Remember—you are to be tried for warcrimes, hail.
You and me, we can shuffle off this mortal coil, our self slaughter a mere trifle
In this ocean of failed realties, as man to cosmos. (All I want is blackness. Blackness and silence.)
Cause this flesh to melt I beg,
Keep cutting, smaller pieces,
No, the sunrises, it’s ****** and orange,
Citrus, it burns in these wounds,
I feel pain, I feel, warm with this ambiance,
A jacket to prevent morning chill, breathing wisps,
I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to die,
I don’t I don’t now don’t don’t don’t no I don’t want to leave no leave me
Wait!—
(Feb 7 2016)**
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 12:58 AM UTC
After all, we're not savages. We're English.
And the English are the best at everything.
(Piggy)
The hovelled huts
Near school house ditches
Hardly sheltered starving children.
Emaciated, pale and ghastly,
Three million lost.
Exports defined them,
Imports denied them,
The world was told their hunger
Was the wrath of God.
For seven hundred years
Untolled Rachels wept;
Twice as long
As Jews were kept
Enslaved in pagan Egypt.
This was Ireland,
Not Auschwitz.
Beneath the banners of
Labour and Freedom,
Toiled the innocents.
Eyes burning from hot peppers,
Bodies weak and wrecked
From boarding;
Skin separated by flogging
Thousands of Cypriots.
Over soup and sandwiches
A demarcation's drawn,
So Hindus now face Muslims
Seeking their new homes.
Three million displaced
During lunch,
Brain salad served up on a hunch
By a line
Drawn by one man.
This wasn't Treblinka,
But Pakistan.
Millions fenced in labour camps
In what they called
The Dark Continent.
The torture was horrendous,
With random executions.
Think the worse, you're still not there,
Think ravenous dogs and mutilation,
**** and human degradation.
Eyes gouged out, ears cut off,
This was Kenya,
Not Warsaw.
Sir Winston wore
His crocodile shoes,
Feigning the blues,
While blocking friendly supplies;
Letting three million hungry die.
His callousness was cruelly matched
When delivering Mahatma's epithet:
“Has Gandhi not starved yet?”
This was Bengal,
Not Dachau.
Their ****** count adds up.
Their new policy was errant:
Imprison all the peasants.
It was racist to the Nth degree,
A million desperate detainees
To exile when they're freed.
But half died on their knees
In Malay,
Not Buchenwald.
The Boer War and Apartheid
Were blessed with Royal Assent.
In Amritsar Brits opened fire,
To cut down Innocents.
This isn't just in history,
It's happened all too recently.
Argentina's watery graves
Gurgle from The Belgrano,
Sunk by Royal torpedoes
For a rock of sheep.
Such was the work
Of a band of brothers,
To fly their flag
Over Falkland waters?
There's no denying
The atrocities
Of her maternal
Ferocities.
The Spinners
Wrapped their glories
Furled in Jack's war stories.
The winners
Have detoured their crimes,
Enjoin us denouncing
**** times;
But the sun hasn't set
On Empire fires:
China, India, Kenya, Aden,
Ireland, Africa,
All invaded.
All degraded.
Imperialism is not benign,
The legacy lives on
In Palestine.
Under pretence
Of flag and king,
*The English are
Best at everything*.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 2:01 PM UTC