Shallow graves dot landscapes
Marked by mud and rain.
Nameless strangers disappear nightly
Subjected to horror and pain.

Crimes of power, will and greed
Bring abominations without souls to power.
Acts of brutality, evil and fear
Cause innocents to hide and cower.

Bombs fall from clouds in darkened skies
To shatter, maim and destroy.
Hapless soldiers and powerless bystanders
Become pawns in someone else’s ploy.

Children become victims
In places they were told was home.
Young eyes bear witness to atrocity
And innocent hearts soon turn hard as stone.

Mothers carry dead children
Unable to let go of life.
Soon they too fall victim
In this merciless world of strife.

16 year old boys patrol borders
Wearing trophies from victorious kills.
Apathetic American housewives
Vacuum floors while popping pills.

Food given by sympathetic hands
Become weapons of control and greed.
Starvation soon overpowers fear
Only to be buried like a shallow seed.

H2’s roll suburban streets
Feeding the need for oil.
Fortunes won and lost
On someone else’s soil.

Diamonds on Rodeo Drive
Silicon on TV and the big screen.
Weapons that kill from 500 miles away
Without ever being heard or seen.

Bare feet on trails in the Congo
Starvation and fear in peoples’ eyes.
No conciliation to them
That everyone eventually dies.

The ghosts of nations walk the earth
Bearing witness to unspeakable crime.
Wrenched from their vessels too quickly
They cry warnings to us for all time.

Lessons taught by our predecessors
Have fallen on deaf ears.
One day the pain will overwhelm us
Till the world is flooded in tears.