Aghast at Horrors
Selectively
Beyond the wilted words
The incontrovertible dying
Sink into the slog unsoothed
By the crocodile crying
From a palette of Holocausts
We condemn or not
Using moral imperatives
We scarcely know
To enforce an apartheid
Of friend from foe
How many dead to qualify
How many victims need
There be to make
A successful pity party
Not every immolation
Inflames us
Nor every tongue extracted
Sets ours wagging
Some severed limbs
We lamely ignore
And those which detain us
Do so not too long
Thus it is
We do not roundly
Reject brutality or war
And of the perfidious
Who facilitate this gore
We say little more
Maintaining our numbness
Our sacramental dumbness
Stepping gingerly on
With something like aplomb
Over the remnants
Of most everyone
4/21-4/27, 5/7, 5/10, 5/23, 6/24-25, 6/28, 7/5/06
Copyright 2006 by Maurice Leiter
Posted with permission.
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