soldiers work - draft 1

by force, by AIDS, by starvation
what good is my poem
if it cannot stop this
my words feel little now
i want them to heal

planned destabilization
they no longer know why they are fighting
nor whom
violence for violences sake

eastern congo
sexually assaulted victims
four or five times more than gunshot wounds
they are not numbers
they are women
real eyes that burn
real fingers that dont want to feel anymore
real heads that shake in dispair
hearts maybe hearts that hold hope
somewhere however faint

in a bed across the way
a man is chanting
a woman is knitting
"the smell is awful" a doctor warns
"she's only fourteen" whispers an aide

victims range in age from four to eighty
sodomized men
fathers forced to commit incest
with daughters, with brothers, with sisters
she passed out before they finished with her
"eight or ten of them raped me"
whole family olbiged to witness
children brought in
husband tied up to the hut
home, sacred
repeatedly several gang rape a woman
commonplace assaults

domestic and sexual slaves
women and girls kidnapped
plunder and rape
armed men divide into groups
just after nightfall