Boy

I came across this free-verse during a recent move - and cleaning out of old (and I mean old) files. It was written in the late 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam War. My older brother was in the Marines and in the middle of the war zone, as he put it, "building the road to Da Nang with a rifle and a shovel." It is short but, I believe, very powerful. Sadly, it is still true today.


©2007 by LeeZard

(Pulitzer Prize winning photo: Kent State students killed by National Guard during Viet Nam War Protest)




He’s a boy.
You’ve given him a gun,
You taught him how to shoot.
You’ve given him a knife,
You taught him how to kill. You’ve taken him from home,
You taught him how to hate.
You call him a man.
He’s a boy.
A boy who can shoot,
Kill,
And hate.


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