SONGS OF WAR by Helen Losse

Perhaps, the adage believed by children is true.

It concerns the way they view the world,
line blasted streets.

The men will die for those who govern,
singing songs of war and trumped-up creeds,
pitting brother against brother, maiming for life.

The sucking babes who cannot cry
have parched throats—throats that swell
amid the rubble. Have those children no homes,
no mothers?


first published in Poets Against the War (February 2003)