Loss of Innocence (Anti-war poem)

 

I originally wrote Loss of Innocence  over ten years ago to express my sadness over the use of child soldiers in war. Sadly with the current Russia/Ukraine crises, the rise in inner city conflicts and all the issues affecting the world, I have decided to repost it. A slightly altered version of the poem is depicted in my upcoming novel, Aquarian Dawn, a coming of age story set around the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. It is set for release on October, 2022 by indie publisher, Threeroomspress. 

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Bloody Rivers

It was Sora who caused the flow

Barely a moon ago

She played ten-ten in dusty playgrounds

Under sunlit skies 

Groans and Moans

The earth’s womb threatens to implode

Her insides smells like death

Flies and vultures ballooned with content 

Her thighs exposed for all to see

That

butterflies

Armed with ak47s

Rummage jungles

Circling the war mill

That feed real life vampires

In high places. 

Stolen innocence is nothing compared to

The rape of innocence 

I wonder if those perpetuators 

Where themselves depraved

And carried with them the memory

Of when their wonderment was forcefully drowned

In rivers of blood 

In being the initiators

Do they heal, feel justified in their suffering

Pleased at the idea that they shall not be the only generation

That cannot remember heaven?

She needs to be sown up

Our mother

Look at her, don’t turn away

From her gut wrenching cries 

No epidurals can silence this pain 

Manifesting in the souls of her children 

Forced to perpetuate the illusion

Of separation and disharmony 

So that now when we talk of being real

We refer to something sinister…cynical 

Anything that can prevent us from taking responsibility

Or bearing some guilt

And so day by day we lose little Soras and male equivalents

In the middle east, in Africa, the ghettos and suburbs of America, Europe

Everywhere….

Moment by moment, flames extinguishing

Memories of paradise and magic disappearing ….