Aleppo strikes the child
Of concrete dust and blood.
He raises his hand,
Feels the warmth on his forehead.
Shock, not yet knowing
His orphaned life, siblings gone.
The innocent made to pay
For one man’s evil.

To crush all who would
Challenge his power, or be in his way.
That steel fist of ego and hate;
That sociopath’s desire
To make others his horses and pawns,
That he, the king, cannot rule without.

Those smaller than pawns
Do not understand.
Why must families die?
They migrate in hundreds of thousands,
Drowning in treacherous waters.

Nations begrudgingly letting them pass through
Or else stay in temporary camps.
A few taking refugees, but not enough.
As Merkel catches heat for opening borders
And supremacists march in the streets
And mothers and fathers worry
Which marketplace will be next.

Americans overwhelmingly distrust Muslims,
Assuming they might be terrorists
Though the process will take years
And Trump rides in on fear and fairytales.

Back in Syria,
As getaways continue,
The little boys and girls
Think it’s an adventure.
The teens know it’s forever,
Adults before their time.
No more school, friends, or hope,
Though more hope than dying in rubble.

Travelers’ phones die,
No electricity on path or berth
In tiny flimsy boats.
No one to record the dangers;
No one to weep with them
Until it’s too late.
No water after meager supplies run out,
As their packing was light,
Survivor’s shedding.

Fear hastening every step,
A marker writes on a little backpack
For identification.
Not preempting theft or confusion,
But a stolen life’s badge.

The sun and the cold,
The wretched bodies camping out,
No place for hygiene,
Forgetting that it ever mattered.
Eyes retreat into black holes,
Skulls-in-waiting.

Who will love them,
The forgotten ones?
The solemn trudge of death is indifference,
The seasons of
Autocrat genocide,
Pummeling hope,
By dictatorship madness.