Saturday, February 27, 2016

Guns and Cameras



These days, gunfire and cameras
make the same sound:
rat-a-tat,
rat-a-tat.
One kills; the other
immortalises,
what comes first?
I don’t know.

In these extreme days,
when guns crackle in snow and heat,
the cameras pan,
debris and dead bodies.
Those that didn’t face
the cold steel metal, say:
“It was me,”
“It was me,”
“that the bullet missed.”
Why? I don’t know.

Those days before Kalashnikovs,
and Berettas were invented
killing a man was called murder
“Lock ‘im up,”
“Lock ‘im up.”
Nowadays the military-industrialists,
kill millions,
yet, we hail them as keepers of democracy.

These days gunfire and cameras
make the same sound:
rat-a-tat,
rat-a-tat.
One kills; the other
immortalises,
what comes first?
I don’t know.

III/MMXVI

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