Suffer the Little Children - a poem by Chris Zachariou

Napalm bombing of Vietnam

Men with God on their side
fly high in the burning skies.

Napalm death pours down
on little children fleeing in terror
their tiny bodies burning.

Rotting corpses cover
all the fields for miles around
but the man with the German twang
commands his men to drop more bombs
and for that he wins the Nobel prize.

In a walled city in another country
men who dress in red and black
live and pray in gilded churches.

They feast on lamb and wine
to the sound of children sobbing
and ignore the blood and tears
staining their feather beds.

They too are men who claim
to have God on their side.

Cardinals in a Room