The End of Violence
On the Guatemalan border the bullets are flying,
the guerillas load ammo by a cathedral in Spain,
the saboteurs of Armenia fix their fuses for dying,
the tanks pass the Golan to lurch northward again.
The gunmen in Paris fix a charge for the Minister,
near Manila the children learn to sharpen their knives,
in a market of Beirut the boy holds his dead sister,
the jets bank over Thailand as the boatload arrives.
In Belfast they detonate the troops in the lorry,
the Kurds of Iraq read the Koran and die,
near Cuzco blood darkens the Shining Path to glory,
the missiles of the Dakotas gleam in the sky.