Well Bottom Blues

My Radio Is Bleeding

My radio is bleeding heinous
news of war and ethnic cleansing.
Once this nation and its allies
went to war to stop atrocity.
Now it cowers in fear of lobbyists
who insist it endorse the horror,
as the innocent inmates huddle
in the concentration camp
awaiting death or ethnic cleansing.

History did not start in October.
A few of us remember the Marines
bombed in Beirut, but not the massacre
directed by the government of our ally;
Sabra and Shatila where the proxies
slit children’s throats, cut
open the pregnant women’s bellies.
This monstrous war, both sides,
merely repeats the cycle again.

I watch. I listen. I read. I cringe.
Others look away as they did
seventy years ago but
I cannot. I will not.
Anything I do will be construed
as symptoms of the ancient hate….

There are levels of empathy which
are a blessing or a curse from the gods
and we are left to discern which it is.