Casualties of War.

We’re going to war I think,

It’s madness!

We’re going to war I think,

And we all know that way lies badness.

We’re going to war,

Innocent people will die,

“Casualties of War”,

The Generals will cry.

But it’s still murder to me,

There is no need to get the innocents,

Involved in this fight.

“BANG” down goes a father,

“BANG” down goes a mom.

Leaving behind the daughter and son.

All they were doing was walking the street,

Either to a shop or a friend they were to meet.

The bullets and bombs just suddenly appeared,

They tried to escape, crying and shaking in fear.

Alas, sadly for them there was nowhere to run,

They could not escape,

The army’s bombs and guns.

So they die like hundreds more,

The Generals pretend to be saddened,

They say “I’m sorry but…

…Well… there are always casualties of war.

Casualties of War has to be one of , tarin thinks, the deepest poems he ever wrote and one of the most emotion stirring too, for him personally. Inspired by, and based on, the war mongering of the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and the then President George Bush, it and Casualties of War: Part Two have both been known to make the hardiest of people cry. Perhaps that is why Poetry Now chose to publish it in their 2003 anthology “Visions of War”.