War Zone Poem by Peter Bakowski

Here are the key words in this diminished world—

weapon,

target,

victor,

victim.




Take your next breath,

take your last breath.

Roll the dice over the edge of a cliff

into tomorrow’s headlines.




The war turns children into orphans,

the war turns children into corpses,

the war turns children into statistics.

Children, it’s not a good time to play outside.




Not everyone is listening,

not everyone is learning,

not every human is humane.




This is an angry poem.

Anger is a shovel blade

striking buried skull and rib,

slowly unearthing

another mass grave.