You know,
how does a person get to that place?
I mean,
you're born,
someone loves you,
you find a place in the world and take each step until
there you are,
looking like GI Joe,
blowing the brains out of a smiling woman in a mom-car
then sauntering on
like a cool breeze.
Bad as it was
bad as the lies about it are
bad as the blood all over the stuffed toys and the airbag were,
the thing that made me finally cry, and scream,
and not know how to contain what I felt
was the "before" image
of the pet dog in the back seat.
How does someone get up in the morning,
slip into their army man bullshit,
and go blow away a smiling woman with her dog?
Jonathan Ross, how did you get there
with a gun in your hand,
her death on your head,
and a pet dog rolling away with its dead mom at the wheel?
Hard to express the feelings aroused by this incident--dread and loathing and bonedeep disgust just skim the surface--but you manage it perfectly here. I remember some movie talking about the well of souls only holding so many, and when the last soul was fitted to its body, children born after would be soulless. We are seeing that generation now, I think.
ReplyDeleteYes. This did me in too. And his words right after. It is a good question, how someone gets from being a little boy to what he is today. I agree with Hedge - I dont see how there can be souls in some of their bodies, even more so with those surrounding and enabling the orange king.
ReplyDeletemy mom turns 90 this year. she says her first memory is of war, as the Japanese invaded Hong Kong. what will today's children remember as the first day of war? a video game? nothing at all? sigh ~
ReplyDeleteHorrific. It was already nightmarish and it's still descending into God-knows-what. I still can't believe it. That said, I love your punch-in-the-gut poem, no one could put it better.
ReplyDeleteWe're seeing the images every day of atrocities committed all over the world as uniformed men take innocent lives, civilian lives, and then to see it on our shores, on our soil, by our men in uniform, mostly masked, it makes me wonder where we're headed, whether we were ever really "safe" -- us, those we love, those teddy bears and the blood-spattered dog. How did that man become the monster he is? At this point, does it even matter. He exists, and many more like him. As if they've always been waiting for such moments in time, even at history's close.
ReplyDelete