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299 · Aug 2020
A Day of Madness
Joe Millard Aug 2020
I began to weep seeing horrors
outside the Urakami Cathedral
amid skeletons of the horrific explosion,
that scarred innocent faces,
burnt patterns on human flesh,
and melted eyes of the pure
on that August day in 1945.
  
The day the bells did not ring
for those disfigured by flames,
charred by unseen radiation,
or left wandering among the dead.  
My tears became fears
outside Nagasaki Peace Park in 1956
seeing the insanity of igniting the air.
114 · Sep 2020
Teach Them Carefully
Joe Millard Sep 2020
The children ask, “Who starts the wars?”
And I answer with little thought
while soldiers march, and people die,
“That bad people must be fought.”

Evil really roams the world
since the time of Cain,
and lives in shadows where it hides
to convert the rich and sane.

Gluttony hungers for more gold,
and fills the youth with hate,
while demons hide behind closed gates,
taunting generals in callous debate.

Greed made thirsty by his friend
finds reasons to fund his will.
He bribes the weak to gather their young
and sends them out to ****.

Their malice is felt in ancient Rome,
their stench in Canyon de Chelly,
at Stalingrad, in Spartan homes.
I help their cause, with what I say.

— The End —