On Killings

“He killed four people.” He killed
more than that if you count down
all the lives he stunted by doing that
and maybe it comes out to five or more
or maybe they didn’t care enough
to lose a smidgen of sleep over it.

“He killed seven or eight or nine people,”
and maybe he did or he didn’t but
it seems that as the number goes up
the tension of what he did comes down
and people are shocked but they stop caring
except for the few who knew him or the people
he killed or the professional bloody hearts
of people in the know about such things.

“He killed a lot of people, innumerable people,”
and maybe he did do that but it wasn’t like
he did it himself; maybe he did do that
but it wasn’t like he cared for them at all,
leaving that to someone else and maybe they cared
in their own clinical way but when it was done
they went home to bed and didn’t lose
a smidgen of sleep over one of them.

“He hasn’t hurt a fly himself, he’s a kindly
old man, can’t believe any of this, put
my hands over my ears, lalalalalalala…”
and maybe they are right and maybe they’re not
but the people are still dead, they’re rotting
in the street, in their homes, in big old graves
dug far from here, or in the big old ocean;
some people are dead, some are not; either way
this earth turns impartially around while people
are either alive and at peace or they aren’t
and they lose smidgens of sleep in unending chains.

In fact, only the unhappy few
remember all those now buried dead
and they certainly would go to their graves
and leave flowers if they had enough for all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T