The slippery wheel addresses my need to work out my thoughts about child soldiers and what motivates a child to become one. It's always been one of the most enduring image in my mind, that of a little boy cradling a rifle in his hands. It's a sad enough sight to require at least one piece.
The slippery wheel
Slippery like the conscience of a soldier
Garbed in wreaths and flags, slippery like
The wheel that turns the trades of industry,
Slippery but never hard like the soil we
Dug to bury his broken body;
Twelve years old and I want to ask what
Are you doing here? Twelve years old
And shooting guns, little boy what are
You doing here? But his broken body only
Stares back at me, no words to speak just
Blood and bone and things he will never
Be;
He lies there so silently, so still, so much
So that I know he’s dead but there are
No echoes, no six gun salute for child
Soldiers buried in jungles in remote
Corners that no one sees;
There are no sound bites or flashbulbs just
This flesh slowly dying, food for maggots
And time and the language of violence, little
Boys what are you doing here? Playing hide
And seek with bullets and landmines while
Your fathers fertilize the soil with their tears
And blood and your mothers, only mothers
Of children they have no love for, forced by
The seed of vile men spurred by speeches
Of hate and I find myself asking once more
What are we doing here?
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