Warplanes sing in our skies
Like Unseasonal Mosquitoes—
And bombs yell like steel rain.²
To enjoy fireworks you would’ve had
To have lived a Different kind of life …³
War planes choose you, Discover
You, plant their Blackness in you.⁴
We learn to sing a Child calm
In a bomb shelter.⁵
We’ll fix anything—
If we can fit the Solution inside of a bomb.⁶
The bombers kill the Babies to make the
World Safe for children to grow up in.⁷
The main Frontiers must never be
Crossed by anything but bombs.⁸
There is no conceivable consequence
Of not setting the bomb off that is Worse
Than the known Consequence of setting it off.⁹
How many times must the cannonball fly,
Before they’re forever Banned …
How many Deaths will it take till we know:
Too many people have died?¹⁰
¹ George Monbiot, Bomb Everyone
² Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
³ Naomi Shihab Nye, No Explosions
⁴ Mai Sayigh tr. Lena Jayyusi & Naomi Shihab Nye, Departure
⁵ Solmaz Sharif, Drone
⁶ Jimmy Dore, Sentenced to Live
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
⁸ George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
⁹ Douglas Adams, Life, The Universe and Everything
¹⁰ Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind