Occupation 1943 - Saadi Youssef

We boys, the neighborhood’s barefoot
We boys, the neighborhood’s naked
We boys of stomachs bloated from eating mud
We boys of teeth porous from eating dates and pumpkin rind

I Explain a Few Things - Pablo Neruda

Traitorous
generals:
look at my dead house
look at shattered Spain

Passiondale - Rob Esdaile

The ancient emblems of Christ’s death
have become now strangely shrunk.
The forest whence the cross was hewn is no more:
a treeless, birdless, muddy waste stands in its place;

Air Raid - Chinua Achebe

It comes so quickly
the bird of death
from evil forests of Soviet technology

The wrong rain - Jennifer Vishagan

I feel a longing, to feel 
the hug-worthy summer again.
Sleeping under a blanket of smoky fog 
that vows to weigh worse
as the winter sways in slow and ruthless.

On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam - Hayden Carruth

Well I have and in fact
more than one and I'll
tell you this too

To war mongers everywhere - Susan Nalugwa Kiguli

Tell us
Did you start a war
So our women
Could be sold to public shame?

The Hangman - Maurice Ogden

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame on the courthouse square.

Vavau and Haapai - Falepapalangi

My longing is told to the wind;
Is it a thing in which one may joy,
That in this land we abide?
Fair beckons the strand of Keitahi,¹
And the wave-beat of Tausisivatvaki¹—
Who is there content to stay here?

They Don’t Care About Us - Christopher Kudyahakudadirwe

They talk about us
On political podia
As if they care about us