a screaming

[JBFRAME at aol.com]

After all this time the rage still stifles.  Why do the people always bear 
the brunt?  With bland faces the talking heads are asking for the 
"confirmation" they do not need when the facts are to their liking.  War is 
hell, and you can't refine it.  All hope for any kind of negotiation, for any 
kind of "justice" other than the ancient bloodlust dressed up in high-tech is 
gone now.  Too late, too late for everything.  Why, we even have others who 
will do our torturing for us, should it be deemed necessary.  Let's see, how 
many more raids before the body count evens out?  Well, it may take many 
more, because, as every good American (spelled with a "c") knows, each one of 
us, blessed by birth or economic luck, is worth ten (or is it one hundred?) 
of them.  We shall probably win a famous victory.  He who dies with the most 
toys, wins.   What kind of world is this?  What kind of world have we made?  
What kind of world are we making?  We now know that America has been weighed 
in the scales and found wanting.  Those who would deny this truth are merely 
part of it.  Those who must believe we are just, well they have that luxury.  
We are giving our enemies all that they need.  This is another failure of 
imagination.

Reconciliation

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the battle of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, 
and ever          again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, 
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin -- I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the whit face in the coffin.

-- Whitman
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