The Brotherhood Of Man Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The brotherhood of man

When he came into the hall, his brother came down
the stairs, he had forgotten to buy milk
Outside, guns blasted his brother fragmented to
a hail of noise and blood on splattered asphalt.
The soldiers, in a killing mood, shot into the hall
he ran up to the third-floor flat where his sons sat
told them to flee to the roof of opposite buildings
They refused and had slingshots to defend themselves
he didn't try to persuade the boys, undid a window
and jumped on the next roof as bullets of ill will
hissed past like angry wasps on an August afternoon.
The building he escaped to had once been a clinic
for those who hated their faces and wanted a change
This war had descended into brutal self-delusion
where the news shouted slogans of hatred, beating
People to mass hysteria, blindly killing anyone that
resembled the foe, not seeing the enemy was them
committing fratricide.
When the blood lust of ammo suppliers was sated
a nervous calm until a flash of light lit up the sky
there was no one left to tell why the war had started.