Humanist Voices in Verse: “To The Generals”

This week’s poem is by Daniel Thomas Moran, TheHumanist.com poetry editor, retired dentist and Boston University Assistant Professor, former Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York and the author of seven collections of poetry. He lives in Webster, New Hampshire with his wife, Karen, where he has taken on the role of Unemployed Poet and Anecdotalist. His recently published collection of poems, A Shed for Wood, has been lauded for its “profound and intelligible poetry” (Peter Quinn, author) while Moran is described as “a distinctive American voice which deserves an attentive hearing” (Elizabeth Heywood, Acumen Literary Journal). His website is www.danielthomasmoran.net.

If you’d like to contribute original poetry to Humanist Voices in Verse,  send an email to write@thehumanist.com with “Poetry” in the subject line. Please send no more than three poems for consideration per week.

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To The Generals

You must take.
It is your nature.

You must
take down,
take away,
take leave.

You must
empty and spend,
even waste.

We have  come to see
You will not be denied.
But please is all I can say.

Do Not Take My Son.

Not his legs or arms,
not an eye or thumb,
not his heart or his mind.

He is not yours to spend.

Should you insist,
you should know,

I could not face
one day more, knowing
that I had let you do it.

—Daniel Thomas Moran