NEWS!!!!

An old man sits in the town square
smokes his pipe, reads his paper
feigns normality
in the place where sirens blare;

a hundred dead a day.


A young man kneels in the dirt
where his brother was shot in the head
on an errand to buy milk
in the place where shells split air;

a hundred dead a day.

An old woman wails on the doorstep
of her rubbled home with
fourteen family members gone
in the place where bodies rot in the sun;

a hundred dead a day.

 A young woman kisses the bloodied face
of her husband, his body three weeks
dead and decomposed
in the place where snipers pick off people as bait;

a hundred dead a day.

An old man tries to tell the tragedy
but can only sigh and gasp, his pain
flailing the words to pieces
in the place where grief is certain as night;

a hundred dead a day.

Children don’t play outside anymore,
the park full of bodies buried
in makeshift unidentified despair
in the place where war avenges its bidding;

a hundred dead a day.

A group of old men play chess
in a spot of the town not far
from the river that deposits human detritus
in the place where gravediggers shovel endlessly
to close the gaping maw of death;

hundreds dead in days.