Author: barb howe

by barb howe

We want revenge
Because the sky has fallen into the earth
And it’s hard to breathe dirt
And our mouths are filled with ashes
And we don’t know what else to do

I cannot tell where the line of people ends
They circle back and start over again

Faces of terror and retribution
Staring dryly in the early morning haze
Stunned
In the fog and smoke of bombed buildings
In New York
In Afghanistan
They pick up the pieces
And start again

And the suited men in capitals
Seated around tables in safe cities
Start over again
While the shells of children fill the streets

There is war here
And the peacemakers
And the soldiers
Walk the same torn and bleeding earth
They pick through the pieces
And start again

by barb howe

We who are born hungry
do not know it.

We do not know
that there is war here
and despair shatters the night
and the bodies of children.

A world falls apart for lack of bread.

We have coffee and biscuits
in the broken morning
and watch the green flicker of wars
fill our tv screens
and we do not remember
the emptiness
of hunger.

There is war here.
Still.
And no one knows who the enemy is.

When men and women go to war
only their shadows remain.

The bakeries stay open into the night
churning out loaves.
We fish them out of dumpsters
And eat in alleyways and gutters.

There is war here.
Daily.
And no one knows the name of hunger
because there is so much of it

A world falls apart
For lack of bread.