Kindertotenlieder

There can be no songs for dead children
Near the crazy circle of explosions,
The splintering tangent of the ricochet,

No songs for the children who have become
My unrestricted tenants, fingerprints
Everywhere, teethmarks on this and that

Poem included with the permission of Michael Longley and his publisher Jonathan Cape

Michael Longley expresses his horror at the deaths of children in bomb explosions and botched shootings.