The Big Black Sucking Hole

It goes against my nature
to think of the horrific
tales of woe
I would rather look at the terrific
tales of romance
and the kindnesses we do

As more carrier groups
plow toward the Persian gulf
as I hear reports of our torture
and massacres of Afghanis,

I also read of one woman in NY
who adopted an Ethiopian girl
whose parents had died of aids.
How the darling girl
cried in her new mother's arms
asking why her mother had died.
She answered her own question
"she was sick and didn't have medicine."

And a group of homeless who
raised money panhandling
for a policeman who was suspended
without pay for refusing to arrest
a homeless man without a place to sleep.

It goes against my nature
to think of the horrific
tales of woe
I would rather look at the terrific
tales of romance
and the kindnesses we do

There is a big black sucking hole
between the compassionate heart
and what we allow the state
to do in our place.

"The gloves are off," said
a CIA man given new orders

to torture at will and shoot
into closed storage containers
filled with prisoners and watch
the blood flow into the sand.

But the fingerprints will be
on all our souls when
retribution comes
and the propagandists
will call the perpetrators
"evil terrorists who kill
and injure the innocent"
while our bombs kill thousands
in the birthplace of civilization
and deny to millions
their access to food
water, electricity and medicine,
and the radiation and poison gasses flow
into the bodies of our sons
and their children.

There is a big black sucking hole
between the compassionate heart
and what we allow the state
to do in our place.

© Copyright by Allen Cohen. All rights reserved.

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