Bring out your dead

(Dies Irae)

Why are we squeamish
Why are we shy
If so many are dead
Who has time to cry?
Haig and Kitchner
had their fun
Fifty thousand a day
just to feed the Hun
Three million in Korea
a million in Java
another three in Nam
Killing is just business
Business knows no shame
Dead ears on smart phones
Brains killed without drones
in Freedom’s name.

When I was in school
they taught us statistics
counting supposedly
with rules scientific
Exactitude, or so we were taught
least after a decimal
far too many naughts.
Here in the West
many deaths we need.
No death,
no resurrection,
No salvation indeed.
Habemus papem
Habeus corpus
Deliver them all
let kingdom come.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..