Vanities Of War

• Jesse Stevens, Grade 7
• Poetry
• 2015

Flames born of hatred, deep crimson blood spilt over the battlefield.
Distant cries of suffering, tears of despair, tragedy and loss.
War's melody is the raging, revengeful roars that echo through the arena.
Music only to the ears of the bloodthirsty monsters called humans.
Peace and patience are as fragile as glass and easy to shatter, but hatred and anger are the unbreakable iron that create the weapons of massacre.
The trap of a nightmare, the shackles of death bind us to war.
Escaping or ending it are as hopeless as the futures of the children.
The children that witness their fathers turning on each other like brutal beasts.
We are the monsters of our own nightmares. We fight for soil and stone, so that is what we will get. The soil for our passing and the stone for our graves- which preserves our empty efforts to destroy, to destruct, to defeat.