Children with guns


In the church they worship spiders, on T.V.
Christ with a neat goatee foretells the rain.
Men drunk on anger oil their blood machines,
women ingest the pennies of their dreams,
and children with guns
dance howling on the entrails of their brothers.

At the Union Hall they're slurping poison soup.
The flesh rots from their faces. "Who are you?"
they ask each others' mirrors.
Men scream at machines in isolation,
women can't catch their breath, and children with guns
take aim at the morning.


Jon Corelis
Death of a Nation: political poems