Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Who taught them to play like this?

So all the little children,
All the dusty little children,
You see them lying there -
Mother’s milk spilled.

The television has a hole
In the dark, cracked tube;
The crumpled swing set only has a
History of motion and rhythm.

The house to run home to
Sags skull like and roofless;
The blown up kitchen is cold and laughless
Like the dusty, limp hand

That stretches out to the parents who should
Have known better about indiscriminate killing.

14 comments:

ozymandiaz said...

Should have known better, but apparently didn't. I like this. Descriptive without being graphic.

Russell Ragsdale said...

Thanks Ozy! I saw some pictures of dead kids and I can't get them out of my mind! It is not me being holier than thou type of thing. I'm not clean, I'm a vet, but the dead kids are just so haunting. This was something I just had to get out. Thanks for the comment, I'm glad you liked it.

Neetee said...

This reads like a poignant photo of an aftermath featured in silent pain on the page of a National Geographic Magazine.

And what is missing in that photo are ...the parents who should
Have known better about indiscriminate killing.


You're right. Nothing can capture the end result of the choice to hate than the emptiness of killing.

Brilliant and sad. But, so necessary to say.

Thank you.

Russell Ragsdale said...

Thanks QN! The emptiness of killing is such a haunting thing and dead kids, well there is no excuse for that kind of hobby. It is as if all war has simply degraded to the randomness of terrorism. So all I can do is to speak out, in my own little way.

Thanks for the wisdom of your comment and the generosity of your company, sweet lady!

Pat Paulk said...

The rose has many thorns and you have poignantly exposed one!!

Russell Ragsdale said...

Thanks Pat! This is a particularly hurtful thorn. Thanks for the wise comment.

Plus Ultra said...

Blown up kitchen, cold and laughless....no cooking and no laughing chef but we are the invited guests who weep with you as you see all this, lovely, would like permisssion to link...

Russell Ragsdale said...

I'd be honored Plus Ultra! Thanks for your visit. The presence of delight in the short poem form is a butterfly on my sleve. You have let me have three.

Plus Ultra said...

Thanks Russell, for coming to my blog, honour to link up with you...

Russell Ragsdale said...

Thanks plus ultra! I believe that I am the one who is honored.

Crunchy Weta said...

For this poem and Collateral..

War is so grown up... It's always the children....

At least someomne thinks about them.

Russell Ragsdale said...

Thanks Glenn for the good words! Ash had some pictures on his blog of dead kids and I couldn't get them out of my mind after I looked at them. Still can't shake free of the images. I keep writing poems to find some release

Sue hardy-Dawson said...

Chilling, it holds a lurid fasination, somehow a flashed immage part of the everyday news sureal yet someone's world ended

Russell Ragsdale said...

I think, with the number of humans on this planet if we do not pay attention to the damage we do, then the world has ended, Sue, more or less right on time.