Here are two very different poems with a common focus: child soldiers in Africa. One is a haiku, the other free verse.

Small soldier © David Rose, 2014

   Take this, they tell me;
Small fingers hold heavy metal.
     Who should I shoot?

Red Dust © David Rose, 2016

Red dust
shudders from the drumbeat
of bare feet marching,
marching to a song;
a song for killing.

Green shirt
unbuttoned limply flaps in stride
with ragged shorts, brown legs.
White teeth pant, and big eyes roll;
much too close, the bogey man.

Blued steel
sways from a webbing strap,
a mortal, heavy load.
Amber wood gleams, buffed by
a thousand small fingers.

Red blood
pools on the watered earth
of a village just gone -
Someone's mother,
from another tribe.