There are many reports about children being recruiting into armed forces in a few different places, eg here and here. Image above: Child Soldier in the Ivory Coast, Gilbert G. Groud, 2007
To Be Done
a monologue
begging from the poor
with a broken bowl
and a lost name
the shop is steady
the aunts all say
but it sweats too much
or years spent driving myself
half blind and literate
for a degree in bankruptcy
to rent my butt to the first come oligarch
with more money than immunity
I’m not a disease to supplement his collection
what a blank hand to be dealt
with nothing up my ragged sleeve
‘slave armies’ say the aunts
but too good to refuse
regular meals a uniform
to cover my shredded past
trades to learn
drought creation
manufacturing famine
all the loot you can carry
free wrap-round sex
consensuality a dead god’s oracle
listen kid who’re you calling kid
or I’ll leave you holding the babies
weighed down by their outsize weapons
no epitaph for the living
learning to dodge
overdrones with their droppings
when sunset explodes
and my fabric shatters to bone meal
in some forgotten corner forever nowhere
my image will be everywhere
high resolution on screened sites
cruised by medianauts round the clock
