when no mornings
follow nights
cities lie without their lights
little beasts root happily
children can live all their fears
forests break
mountains shake
then it’s time again
rockets roar with deadly freight
sharp explosions rock the night
soldiers shoot
graveyards bloom
it is war
when scrawny skeletons
creep through the streets
parents weep
dead bodies radiate
new death
and crumpled shapes
spread more disease
then it’s time again
the general orders strategic attacks
and watches how the metropolis cracks
rivers stink
battleships sink
it is war
when the bakers bake no more bread
when the butchers chop off their hands
when the doctors’ only prescription is death
corpses float in the village pond
and supermarkets stay closed
24 hours a day
then it’s time again
maybe the ultimate time
for the warriors to storm from their heights
to the valleys to lance and destroy
they also kill women
all children are dead
the moon is all red
the stars are so wan
we are counting the corpses
as long as we can
it is war
Written, full of dark premonitions, in January 2003, three months before the outbreak of the Iraq War.