Syria.

Syria.

Barren hills stand glowering.
They stand forever still
and towering….but…

A torpedoed city lies in ruins.
Levelled and pulverised
by distant men of glinting steel.
It’s an imploded shell

Homes hang like draping cobwebs.
Broken elbows, shattered teeth
and jellied eyes lie crushed
amongst the bricks and mortar
that was a busy street.

Like wounded terrapins half cindered,
The riven living… slowly move amongst
the splintered bones of citizens.

Each fallen flame of scorching pain,
Each severed limb
and loved one dead,
Becomes the A cappella
in a dreadful, silent wail.

And there, the tiny dying child
with dust white lips is whispering
in shortening breath…

I’ll report you to God.
I will tell him everything.

But words of dying children
fall on deaf ears of men and Gods,
As monies cynically exchange,
for weaponry and wars.

Kristine Byrne. Sept. 2019