“For evil to flourish, it only requires that good men and women look away. It is as easy as changing the channel or turning one’s head away from neighbors in peril.”
The genocide will not be televized.
The tea parties and catwalks should not be disturbed
nor
our own good night’s sleep for
there is work to do and money that we must
earn for so many others to spend on
yachts and jets and new ways to kill.
This genocide will not be attended.
The noise and hoopla of the playoffs or
the next election or papal conclave
will be enough
to drown out the cries of any innocents
that might bother us and
stadiums will fill with the many
glad to spectate and cheer their
gladiators doing battle
This genocide will not be recorded.
The journalists will be bought or gagged
or
simply shot, droned and eliminated with
a turn of the dial
a mute button there
for humanity’s sanity.
This genocide will not be documented.
The poets are too busy dreaming their way
to Pulitzers or academic somnabulism.
The statisticians have long ago given up
counting the dead, the wounded
hopelessness has no number, they cry
in unison, in dark rooms where
all numbers hide.
This genocide will not be remembered.
There will be no Netflix series or History channel documentary.
The dead won’t have gravestones nor buildings named after them.
Memory will die with the victims and no songs will be sung thereafter.
Oh how this murderous world absolves itself of guilt!
All in the hope and wait for the next one.
How else can we be clean but through the uncleanliness
of the other?
This genocide won’t be witnessed.
There are too many more important things to witness.
Guilt, collective or individual has never been our strong suit.
We prefer our coffee and donuts and dreams of
financial security and the odd night out on the town.
We prefer our Lord’s prayers and absolutions and
the optimistic fantastical future we our fed.
This genocide will be written by the victors
the way all lies become truths over time
until one day
someone is brave enough to look and see
what is no longer there.
David Deubelbeiss -May 11th, Mokpo, S. Korea. Drinking red wine and trying to remember the once unforgettable.
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