A poem for ,the unknown Iraqi – and for soldiers everywhere,

the unknown Iraqi, anonymous, at least, to me,

lies sprawled and dead

and splayed across my TV screen.

Alone, forlorn, tattered,

The unspoken agony of the recently deceased.

His shoe is smudged with desert sand,

The socks, grey, thin and

Mouse – like feet.

Killed in action?

Killed in anger?

Killed in the frantic scramble –the near paralysis – of impending defeat?

He is gone.

He is mute.

One end result of a game that’s been played many thousands of times,

A scene replayed across the ages,

As one “just” war (and it’s own war crimes) concludes –

And recrimination rages.

War makes of peace, a miser,

And the unknown Iraqi lies dead, and,

Unlike me, unlike us,

Cannot grow any older, and yet be

None the wiser.

2003

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