WHO STARTED DEATH

Red Sea! Red Soil! Red Sky! Hear me when I cry!
Who started death?
Shark’s tooth? Snake’s fang? Lion’s claw?
Or man’s knives, guns, bombs?
The earth has swallowed too much blood to know.

A flash of news captures a vague attention
There has been Bergen-Belsen: forced fasting, making a race of skeletons
Hiroshima: vision clouded with searing cataracts
There is Assad: a rain of bombs in Damascus
Kabila: laughing soldiers in Goma.
As you switch to another channel
There will be others, perhaps Leeds
Birmingham or Bristol or Essex
Your town, your street, your home

A world of Kulunas you have made
Child-men without mothers they must be
Or else why such insensible hearts?
They destroy, they steal, they kill
Biting the hand that needs
You did not watch, you switched off
Too busy worrying about increased taxes,
Aid-starved children you have ignored
Until they grew into men with no purpose
And their violence breeds violence breeds violence
You have let grow a many-headed monster.

Oh Red Sky, who started death? And who can stop it?