WAR Poetry Reading: THE LAND, by Patrick Trombly

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

When terrorists start a war
through unprovoked attacks
on their neighboring country’s
civilians,
and that neighboring country
first blocks the missiles,
then uses drones to cut down
only the actual person who fired
the last missile, but eventually,
when enough missiles get through,
just has to fight back
and repel the attack, and
take out the territory
from which the thousands
of missiles have been fired,
they’re showing restraint
that the terrorists don’t
deserve.
When that country wins,
even though they’re vastly
outnumbered,
that doesn’t make the terrorists
victims.
It makes them losers.
When they try it again,
and again,
and again,
once a decade for
seventy years,
and lose every time,
continuing isn’t
bravery
or devotion,
and they’re still
not victims.
They’re just bigger losers
than they
already were.
Nobody with a brain
cries for you.
You are not victims.
You are just bigots
and terrorists.
Nothing more.
And what is happening
to you now is not
occupation.
It is justice.
And it is long
overdue.