The War Chronicles

The War Chronicles

The writing is on the walls of Haditha,
splashed on ceilings and floors,
etched in potshots,
bright red and freshly painted
with the blood of
Mohammed’s children.

The writing is in their eyes,
shell-shocked,
grainy,
aching to close.

The writing is scrawled in the skys,
jetted between the clouds,
riding erratically on sun rays,
trolling death in dusty puffs below.

The writing is on their palms,
chronically sweating, and their fingers,
filthy with the knowledge
of hair-trigger death.

The writing is in our toothless smiles,
dimpled in American Idols,
close-mouthed, too ashamed
not to zip up the lies.

The writing is on their boots,
broken and scuffed to second-hand vintage
well before their time,
regularly in search of new feet.

The writing is on every cigarette,
burning a hole in some soldier’s lung,
while he lip-pops smoke rings, wafting
through the air like sweet lost souls .

The writing is on our heads
and the pen is in our hands.
How many more must die
before the ink finally, finally runs dry?

— Patricia Michaels

Posted as entry poem over on Nicholas D. Kristof's Blog