Collateral Damage

by Martina Reisz Newberry

First, there was a thousand years of famine,
then a moment of surplus. Death’s flawless
dreams waited for our silent coming. We

bloomed—black Narcissus on a bruised and
desecrated desert. We set the clocks
for the earth to explode under us.

We ignored the signs, transfused the wounded
with tainted blood and gave medicines that
dissolved the bones of our brothers. We cut

open our sisters’ bodies and placed bitter
leaves in their wombs. We polished our own hearts
with aluminum salts borrowed from the

cellars of devils. We delivered fears
and fevers and the certainty of God’s
malicious ending. Where death lay sleeping,

we woke death up to sort our morals from
our memories. We, the conquerors of
cracked earth and merciless yellow sky, moved

on without apology and death stayed
behind, where we left it. All this, all this,
we cried, we did for Peace.

End of the poem

15 random poems

 

Poetry by subject

Some external links:

The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave 

Talking Writing Monster.

Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US

Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe

Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).

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