you can cry all you want

sunday
april 13th
2008
2.29am

you can cry all you want
about nothing wonderful ever happening to you
you can cry all you want
about the end of the world coming nearer

but what's that to you after all?
you won't be here anyway
to see the killing, the mass graves, the food riots and the cannibalism

you say that
and you are right - so right
i was so naive
you have seen it before
but why do my children have to see it?
why can't we put it behind us?
why does my daughter - who has never seen her grandfather...
and why does my son - who has never seen his grandfather...
why do they have to see a world war?

but here you have been at peace
but here you have not been hungry
but here you have not seen your house burned
your family killed
your temples torn down
your people's stories forgotten

but they have
the older peoples have seen
seen it and done it

peace and war
hunger and fullness

how could i imagine after starving for a hundred years
you would not rip the rivers apart
break open the mountains
and feast upon the land with abandon
and drunken - wipe the vomit from your mouth with the all trees in the
forest

how could i imagine after fighting a hundred years war
that coming home you would not take the village girls and get them pregnant
and fill their bellies with more soldiers
that coming home you would not want some comfort, some reward
for all your bloody labours sacrifice