War Innocence Poems | Examples
These War Innocence poems are examples of Innocence poems about War. These are the best examples of Innocence War poems written by international poets.
They are not headlines,
not numbers
stacked in columns of loss.
They are children...
running with paper kites
stitched from the scraps of yesterday,
drawing suns with broken crayons
on walls that no longer stand.
Their laughter once rose
above the call to prayer,
a fragile hymn
against the roar of falling skies.
Now, quiet shows them before their time
how to carry grief in tiny palms,
how to tuck emptiness close
as though it had been cradled in their chest all along.
Yet—
in the rubble,
a doll without arms still wears a smile.
In the dust,
tiny feet trace games
on streets the world has forgotten.
Hope is stubborn.
It hides in their eyes
flickering like a candle
protected from the wind,
whispering to us
if we tune our hearts to
their quiet voice,
...that childhood
should be a garden,
not a graveyard of dreams.
Remember them.
Not as shadows of war
but as children who deserve
to wake beneath an unbroken sky.
(“Enemy of the State Merit Badge”, 2011, original oil)
In The Morning
In the morning the house smells
Of the sandalwood scented candle
I burned all night
In honor of a slain patriot.
I wake heart still heavy
And it just gets heavier
When the news keeps coming in
Of how much his enemies despised him
And how they gleefully celebrate now.
It’s odd to think of sane people celebrating
The murder of a kind and just and righteous,
And may I say, pure soul.
It just goes to show where their hearts are
And where they are not.
Morning dawns on a new day
As hundreds of millions of Americans wake up
To what is now an openly declared war
Between good and evil, liberty and tyranny.
And somehow it feels like 1775
All over again.
(9/11/25)
They took him—
not for war,
not for crime,
but for curiosity.
A boy from Congo,
where rivers hum with memory,
and the trees know your name.
Ota Benga—
smile full of sun,
soul full of sky—
was stolen,
placed in a cage
beside an ape
while the world laughed.
And they called it science.
They called it education.
But it was cruelty—
plain and piercing.
He was not a beast.
He was a man.
A son.
A story.
His wife murdered.
His village burned.
His dignity erased
by Western hands
that claimed to know God.
They broke his heart
until he broke his body—
1916,
a bullet to the chest.
Not to die,
but to escape
a world that refused him humanity.
We did not lose a man.
We lost a mirror.
And it still hurts to look.
Say his name—
not in pity,
but in pain.
Let tears fall
for what was done
and what was denied.
Ota Benga—
you were never the savage.
We were.
War kill martyrs
Bread soak in blood
Orphans flourish.
A howitzer does not shoot flowers
Missiles are designed to kill
A battlefield’s not for tender hearts
Innocence with blood is spilled
wars so endless
the heart of god mourns
guiltless children perish
On the day that my family died,
They didn't give me a chance to dry.
I WAS 12
They told me that I was now on their side,
That I no longer had to hide.
I WAS ALONE
There were other boys the same as me,
They hit us and forced us not to be me but we.
I WAS SCARED
They gave me a gun,
They told me not to run.
I WAS MISSING MY MUM
They showed us who we should go and kill,
They said it would be fun and such a thrill.
I FELT NUMB
They told us we would get a reward,
They said we were men no and only to look forward.
I FELT COLD
They sent us all to fight against grown men,
They told us we would win, not if but only when.
I WAS DEAD
Death to all the angels,
Death in the crying sky.
The eyes of hungry babies probe us.
They plead with us in abject terror.
In ghettoized Gaza,
No mother and child will sleep,
Bombed as they weep,
They are the fish in a barrel.
This is collective punishment
Of all the guilty infants.
All the guilty Palestinians will be cleansed,
They will be purged in reprisal.
The racism of the entitled
Hides behind their religious texts,
Their sanctimonious gaslighting of war.
Death to all the angels,
Death in the crying sky.
We buy and are sold priceless things,
read human stories written by android;
a smokescreen present muddies the once transparent past,
innocence doom-scrolls, an aging youth now hard to avoid.
Look young but age gracefully,
stay slim whilst enjoying your food;
have children as you climb the corporate ladder,
discuss your feelings but don't affect my mood.
Water once clear becomes slick with thick oil,
propaganda turns the brave into shadows who defy;
wars are not wars but are crusades and are justified and are righteous,
the truth told to us by men in ties is a lie.
War is the murder of innocence.
Innocence of the same coloured blood.
War is the evil that men do to justify their meanings of good.
War is death and destruction.
War is horror and pain.
War is humanity failing.
Humanity will fail again and again and again and again..
shattered glass,
all over the floor.
my feet bleed,
but I still want more.
some years ago,
you started a war.
I loved you once,
never again I, swore.
you paint me evil,
but I disagree.
you disliked yourself,
and took it out on me.
these marks that you’ve left
are starting to wear.
I can’t be who you need,
but you don’t care.
shattered glass,
nothing to fall for.
a million cracks run through the pane,
& i wait for you at the door.
A game I used to play
'Search and Destroy' ~
when but an innocent schoolboy
As kids we learn to love and pray
But some can have it all stripped away
War scares left on the bare skin
Showing the world of our sin
But some can be helped to conserve
The ways we desperately try to preserve
To re-learn the ways to love and pray
And to have all our troubles come abay
To break open that blurry outer case
To live happily in this dark place
As adults we learn to hate and lie
But some can have it all come back by
Kelogb (6-7-6)
Let us be Thug-of-war!
Bring sh*t to light and restore
Goodness reign evermore
As masters of life's mess
Fear not, embrace its cool stress
But settle not for less
The customs men shake their heads
and watch the women enter Mexico.
Three with skirts, white socks,
one with jeans
and proper blouse.
Seventeen, eighteen
just out of Concord Academy
in a black Packard Super Clipper,
not quite as big as a hearse.
They buy silver jewelry from the women
and beers and tamales from a man.
Night comes,
they watch the moon large
over the Pacific.
They lay under the Packard on blankets,
staring at it
while a whitehaired man swats away
with a broom handle
two stumbling young men
who get too close to them.
What happened, Mom?
We asked her about then-
The summer of 1949.
Did you meet a boy there?
No, nothing happened,
she said.
Nothing happened.
We went there
and came back.
It was the lull in between,
everything happening.
And then-
Everything happening.
I see it now,
my mother,
the girls,
the moon reflected in their eyes,
the smooth Pacific,
a guitar, a song in the air.
Their moments run through me,
each one,
as though
I had never been born.