War

• Soon Lau, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2007

With blazes brightly burning in the night,
A thousand headless dragons shriek their strife!
And everywhere you turn, a tortured life,
A causeless feud, some bitter, tragic fight.
Would heavens shine down with all their saintly light
To quench the fire, to thieve the thief’s own knife
And halt the kills, leave husband for his wife
Not pallid men who flinch at every fright.

O would the world be saved, if angels came
And wrenched my rage’s gruesome smouldering ire?
Or left me crossed up high with all my shame?
Or saved a world which mankind made their pyre.
Our doom is sealed by our own nature’s flame
Unless we turn to peace from painful fire.