Children of War
by Gary Jacobson © February 2006
War is all some children have seen
Pain a fact of life
Misery a constant
Watching love ones come and go
Die before the beast they too well know
They think this barbarity normal
Guns ... dust ... noise as usual
Scenes heartbreaking
Playing in a bombed out building
Quivering atop the remains of civilization.
Play somber games of war
In the streets
Among rubble once their home
In paddies amid danger
On sand dunes
Rife with uncertainty
Filled with deepening despair.
Will they adjust to stay alive
Their holocaust survive?
Children sway in war's voracious wind like reeds
Their very childhood bleeds
Singing songs of annihilation
malignant desolation
Blowing in wavering wind like a rhyme
Born in the wrong place, at the wrong time
Doomed wherever winds may blow to follow
Their pestilent lives hollow
Inconsquential
Illogical!
O, the future's in our children
These precious little ones
Who know too well
The hard edge of death
Searing pain.
What will they grow up to be
When all around them is hatred
Unpropitious violence?
These imposters
Should not with children dwell.
So big
So innocent
So full of hurt
Where there should be delight
Stagnant emptiness
Their vacant faces
Gazing with blank stares
Unfathomable terrors surrounding them
Horrors abounding in their grown-up world.
As they look back in wide-eyed devastation
Their world falling down around them
Devastation all they know.
What does their future hold?
What lessons will they learn?
How can they know love
With hatred surging around them so strong?
Will they die young
never tasting the fruits of life?
Eats at their hearts
Aches in their bellies
Tests their very being
When they see loved ones killed
Mother, father, brother ... gone
Watching friends die in pools of blood
Their caretakers silenced
They see life as just surviving
Without the essence of being.
To witness the slaughter
From atop the rubble
Of a bombed out building
Tiny nostrils clogged
With pungent gun powder
The dust of destruction?
Will they grow up but to repeat
Scenes they've seen
Horrors they've witnessed?
Peering through barbed wire
Fence them out
Screen them from the world by hunger
Desperation
Growing fear
Filled with hatred
Destined revenge to wreak
Scores to pay back
Vengeance to atone.
Seek peace!
Peace?
Will they ever see it's face?
Will they ever know
It's sweet embrace?
Will they ever feel
The comforting of peaceful balm
Hear its soothing calm
To relax in the arms of peace.
To watch war rumbling by
To see it
To grow up with it
To live ... to love
Make their place in it?
Will children make a difference
Become killers, or wise sages
Be leaders of men for good
Or evil?
Before life has really begun
Without ever having dreams
Much less, having dreams fulfilled
Never to know tomorrow's treasures?
Will they be able to see
Through fogbound nightmares
Beyond the haunting mist of terrors?
Do children feel the swirling hatred
Or numbly take it in?
Molten in humanity's disgrace?
Here, where fear replaces love
The only thing showering down from above
Children feel not blessings
But tears in their eyes swelling
Born in a world of hating
Pain replacing tenderness
Memories made by shock and awe
Killing is the law.
Gobbled up
Swallowed by the voracious maw
Of the ogre
War's bestial carnivore...
Their only childhood friend?
Who surrounds their days
What toys ... what joys ... what fears?
What apprehensions fill young lives
Where childhood monsters are real?
With much to say about injustice
About being forced to grow up too quick
About daddys to war gone away
Horrors seen every day
Their introduction to death
Before they even started to live?
Which does a child understand more
The man preaching of moral imperative,
Or the gun in his hand?
Do children just not comprehend it?
O, I would take up the little children
If I could
Grasp tiny hands in mine
Clutch them to my breast
Protect them
Shield them from this world of harms
Stem hurtful tears
Kiss tear-streaked cheeks.
I would hug those who cruel war shackle
Those whose terrible suffering too often
War's cruel quest ignores.
I would love them ... comfort them
Show them a better place...
O, that I could carry them to safety
Illuminate that great and sacred place
Where children live happy
Fulfilled lives
In a golden palace...
But where, God? Where?
Open up your arms, God
Here they come...
Children caught in tempest and whirlwind
Anguished in a swirl of hate
Running from real life bogeymen
No hope for them in this war
With no place for them
Hate wreaking violence all around them
Killing all they love ... forever!
I wonder if baby Jesus were born in time of war
Would he understand?
Would the plight of the children
Bring tears to His eyes?
Would he live long enough
To plant the hope of the world?
Could he save man
From those embittered
Will He show the better way
Share His love for us all ... teach us to forgive?
Click the Combat Infantry Badgeto go to my Vietnam Poetry index, each poem
with more action graphics and Pictures
Through pictures go on a combat patrol in "the park"
with the 1st Air Cavalry on combat patrol. Experience the chilling reality
that will give you the taste of "the Nam" on your tongue, leave the pungent
smell of "the Nam" in your nostrils, and imbed textures of "the Nam" in your
brain as though you were walking beside me in combat.