by Karl Kadie
Each bomb experiences a little death
but only fulfills its destiny
when it captures other deaths with it.
Welcome to the battle of the bombs.
Can you keep score?
Hezbollah attacks are called terrorist raids.
Israeli attacks are called military operations.
Hezbollah shoots rockets called Katyushas.
Israel drops cluster bombs.
Katyushas have ball bearings in the warheads.
They fan out upon impact
damaging everything within the range of a football field.
Katyushas are condemned by Human Rights Watch.
Cluster bombs blast over a wide and imprecise area.
They spread hundreds of bomblets -
little bombs that become
de facto antipersonnel landmines.
Cluster bombs are condemned by Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty International too.
Hezbollah hides rockets in apartment buildings,
then fires the rockets on northern Israel.
Some people die, many flee.
Israel bombs the rocket buildings and some others too.
They kill the families and the soldiers
who live in the rocket buildings.
Hezbollah captures Israeli soldiers
and wants to trade them for Hezbollah soldiers.
Israel invades Lebanon and wants to keep the land.
Hezbollah fires rockets on civilian areas and people die.
Israel adds chemicals to the bombs
that kill people and turn them black
but leave hair and skin undamaged.
Hezbollah kills 100.
Israel kills 1,000.
Who wins?
If death equals winning,
does the side that dies the most win?
Karl Kadie holds an MA in English from San Francisco State University and is a native Californian. He has been writing poetry for over thirty years, and published poems in Haiku Headlines and on poetry blogs. His poems reflect a powerful concern about the political events of the new century. Karl earns his living by providing marketing for high technology companies in the United States and Europe.