Who gives you
The right?
Who gave you
The right?
To be wrong
Over thousands
Of children’s dead bodies
Who gave you the right
To decide
That it was now their time to die
For them to stop singing
For them to stop dreaming
What policy paper
What raison d’État
Said that their blood must
Be drunk hungrily
That their eyes must be forever shut
That they are worthless
To this world
That their broken bloodied bodies
Are the right cost
For “total” victory
Who?
Tell me who
No, I will tell you
Rich men
Comfortable men
Scheming men
Soundly sleeping men
Have stolen lives
Little Human lives
Not even strong enough
To beg
Not even loud enough
To be heard over the missiles’ wrath
And wakening you from your bunkered bed
Wicked wicked
Men
Who sumptuously dine and drink champagne
While nearby
Innocent young flesh
Is eaten by a rain of commanded fire
These men sleep soundly
For they say they are right
That it is the other side that is wrong
And that the hard wall of war
Is there
To teach the enemy:
What you do
Will be paid for by children
We will hold all innocence hostage
The future will pay for the present
The ghosts of your children
Will walk up and down your lands
Will haunt your waters and your skies
Will taint your bread and your prayers
And nowhere will you go
And nowhere will you hide
Without hearing their faint cries
Of “why O Father?” Of “why O Mother?”
“O tell me who is guilty?”
“O tell me why I must die?”
• Author’s Note: This poem was written for the 8,000 children recently massacred in Gaza.
