Collateral Damage
POETRY FORMAT, 28 Apr 2014
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service
No one has asked me, but if they did
like Pilate I’d wash my hands of it.
They want a war? Let them have
their war. They want to bomb cities?
I won’t stand in their way.
Was I supposed to run around Serbia
catching missiles and throwing them in the water?
History may condemn me as a cop-out artist.
I’d condemn myself, but NATO assures me
that civilian casualties are an unavoidable cost
that must be paid, that their sacrifice
will be consecrated by peace.
So I envision erecting a shrine for each martyr
constructed of rubble and missile scrap.
I do not anticipate the victims’ resurrection
or my own. What I expect is
that we will repeat this pageant,
that it will become our state religion,
and I’ll become a whiskey priest.
______________________________
Tom Greening: “I engage in five professional activities:
Faculty Member at Saybrook University
Private Practice of Psychotherapy
Clinical Professor of Psychology, UCLA
International Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Writing (Poetry).”
www.tomgreening.com
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Apr 2014.
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