Sangeet Portals | + Follow Poet |
Rhyme | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

If soldiers could cry

If soldiers could cry (2024 Updated)

I really want to know:
How does feel to be a soldier
And go to war?
How can you shoot 
Someone in the face 
And not ask WTF for?
Just for the greed,
Of old men 
Who make bombs and guns?
Or to feed, 
A politician’s insatiable need 
For power?
Who only feel safe when their enemies 
Cringe and cower.

Do you ever cry?
And when your comrades 
Are brutally slaughtered, 
Ever ask why?
How can you see people
Mutilated, raped or tortured,
And simply walk on by.
How do you sleep?
Where do you store and hide
All the secrets that you keep?

Maybe as a child
You had to get tough to stay alive.
Maybe, like me,
You thought you wouldn’t survive, 
No tenderness or warmth, 
Just indifference and brutality. 
Maybe you had parents, 
War traumatised and refugees,  
Just like me.
But if we want to find inner peace
And grow,
Or to be really free,
We have learn how to heal 
The wounds of the past, 
Then forgive and let go.
So, 
Do you ever ask: 
Who is your real enemy?
Or, don’t you want know?

You always say 
Your job is to follow orders 
And simply obey.
I can march on the streets 
Sign petitions and pray,
But there seems to be no way
To stop you killing again and again.
And you don’t want to talk 
With me and explain
How you can laugh and walk
Away from corpses, 
Rotting in the rain.
They must have had families too,
And were once 
Fathers, sons and brothers
Just like me and you.
Once Humans, now a statistic
Maybe they were artistic, 
Hedonistic, or idealistic 
And young, hopeful and optimistic 
That by fighting, 
Something will change and get better,
But if they are lucky: 
Get taken away on a stretcher.

Someone once said to me 
That soldiers fight for freedom, 
Justice and equality,
But if they could cry more
Maybe they would grasp
That there is nothing to kill or die for
And war would be a relic of the past.
One thing history has taught us 
And we know for sure
Invading foreign lands 
Where people speak a language
We don’t even understand 
Is not the answer anymore.

Can we imagine 
That there are no countries?
That the borders are in our head 
And war won’t make us free?
And if we choose peace and love instead 
And live from the heart
We can heal our Earth,
But the only way to start
Is with you and me.
So, from one human being
To another, this is my plea:
Let us stop fighting,
Please.

Sangeet Portals January 2023

Copyright © Sangeet Portals | Year Posted 2023

Please Login to post a comment