POLITICAL Poem: They Fly Them Over the Houses, by Sheldon Hubbard

Testing death machines,
they fly them over the houses.
this facility that designs & manufactures
bots, choppers, & planes to go
decimate the Middle East is only
a stone’s throw from my relatives’ backyard.

Rattling glass & shaking the house,
making the dogs go nuts before
we even have the chance to feel the thick
WHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMPWHUMP
from these death machines that ignite
the fright of others thousands of miles away;
they fly them over their houses.

Alarms scream but only in my head;
these machines aren’t coming for me (yet)
but knowing the conflict they carry,
& what mission they fuel, turns my stomach
to the floor…I must say, I cannot take it anymore.

We humans, the caretakers of Earth, are meant
to love & protect it alongside each other;
holding dear our most precious of things,
like that love I just mentioned…

Yet here we sit, on our many screens,
while the blood of children & families
congeals in streets all across the Middle East.