early out on a Friday afternoon
it’s past lunchtime on a Friday
and images from Aleppo are being
broadcasted everywhere
from Berlin to Warsaw
Nagasaki to Kabul
Sarajevo to Beirut
Baghdad to Hanoi
from Paris to New York City
I’m sitting with a friend outside
a trendy cafe
watching the world go round
and round and round
inside the cafe televisions
hang in the balance
patrons shouting for the wars
to be turned off
exhaling a collective sigh of relief
once their demands are met
we switch from caffeine to craft beer
and talk sports and politics
of the latest intellectual documentaries
challenging today’s minds
and so I say I’ve been told how freedoms
throughout the world
have spread exponentially over the past century
despite public servants in certains places
attempting to reform the world’s inequalities
raising standards of living everywhere
creating economic prosperity
to anyone seeking a better way of life
but what of those dying to be seen
behind the television screens
what has happened to their freedoms
and their endless possibilities
august two thousand sixteen
copyright j matthew waters
all rights reserved
jdubqca 
An excellent piece. This is very powerful and emotive. Sometimes, when we switch off the tv, we can imagine that reality fades, but your last stanza says it all.
Thank you very much, Chris. Once again our world leaders have failed so many…the images of war torn cities chill me to the bone.
Agreed. As ever it is the always the least compassionate who wield the power.
I think it’s great… we need a balance though… only war is not true, but we need to see it for what it is…
We’ve made such progress on so many fronts, why can’t we do the same toward solving conflicts without warfare?