Let your war cry
Be weeping
For people being killed,
Not a clamor
To kill more people.

Since I was a little boy
War has made me cry
And wonder why
We deny
Our shared humanity.

Bayonet is
Such a pretty word
But its definition
Stabs me in my soul.

If war
Doesn’t hurt
Your heart,
Your heart
Is hard.

War releases
Waves of shells
That breach
The peace
And beauty
Of nature.

Acts of war
Blow people
Into tiny pieces
That can be peaced
Back together.

Bombs bursting in air
Prove inhumanity’s
Still there
In human hearts.

Bombs don’t
Just fall.
People intentionally
Drop them.

Who will weep
For a country’s
Unknown Soldier
In his marble tomb?

Think about
The unknown horrors
Of the Unknown Soldier
And the great sorrows
Of his family.

War explodes
Peace
And fills the world
With loads
Of madness.

Who hears
The fears,
And tears
Of war
Coming from
The other side?

Even though
Aerial bombardment
Is completely unfair
To people
On the ground,
It’s not rare.

Carpet bombing
Insures cruelty and injustice
For all who dare to exist
In a certain place.

Break out
Of the mentality
That war
Breaks out.
It doesn’t.
People start wars.

Pondering war
In the still
Of the night
Is nothing like
Being there.

Rockets’ red glare
Keeps people from seeing
That war is unfair.

War doesn’t kill people. People kill people.

War’s tactics turn people into targets. They turn a battlefield into a mess of butchered bodies with boots on the ground.

When it comes to kindness, war is an empty tank. The cruelty of war ricochets through all human history. Post-traumatic stress disorder is the minimum wage of war.

If war isn’t terrorism, nothing is! Here’s a suggestion. Now that drones can kill, why don’t people stay home? Mines, missiles, and mortars make killing so impersonal.

If humans were basically good, we wouldn’t kill people because of their nationality. If you and your homeland are not being bombed right now, you’re fortunate.

For a man to order other people to kill and die for his opinions and/or beliefs has always seemed cowardly to me. War lays down spiritual weapons (mercy, truth, love, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness) and takes up weapons of mad destruction. Suicide bombers make people extra angry because they can’t retaliate against them.

I wrote these statements while a nuclear power is bombing people and threatening countries that may try to intervene with “consequences they have never seen.”