Amerika's war in Iraq

I hide in the rubble of your conscience,
each bomb you drop implodes your invincibility
as rats tire of eating decomposing bodies,
then turn and gnaw at your humanity.
Whilst maggots invade the ears of the dead
your words are drowned in your insensibility.
In the wake of the carnage survivors strive to survive:
smashed dreams, children's screams — many barely alive.
If only your overwhelming military strength
was matched by an equally strong morality.
You are belittled by your assumed superiority,
exposed like a tarnished, peeling trinket,
you slyly confuse economic gain with liberty
as you try to impose your tawdry democracy.

John Tomlinson

From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.

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From GLW issue 610