Altars Of Man-Made Wars Poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen

Men have always made altars for themselves:
Herod and the slaughter of the 2- year olds
Landlords and feudalism
Patriarchy and oppression of women
The Army and the Roman Empire
Hitler and Nazism
Mussolini and fascism
Mao Tse Tung and communism
Napoleon and militarism
Saddam Hussein and egoism
Osama bin laden and Islamism
George Bush and the wage against terrorism.
And in all these altars
It is the small children -
sacrificed as living offerings!