Raindrops on Roses...

I admit it. I bait-and-switched you. Today’s post is not about raindrops or roses or whiskers on kittens… it’s about torture.

Wait, don’t go away! Humor me! For all of us who haven’t written a dark, disturbing poem since our high school genius days, I present the following. Today is my birthday and I’ll write poetry if I want to!



THE VENGEFUL BELLS

Who speaks for the tortured
Dead, outside cafeterias
Where high school teachers
Write poetry but have
Never bled?

Are the dead well-spoken
Of in the street, by passers by
Who have seen their faces
In photo features but
Forgot them in a week?

Are they mentioned in
The sanctity of our homes
Where other arguments rage
And denial is the only way
To assuage our tarnished hopes?

The tortured dead could tell us
What the reasons were, why
Americans preferred to see them
Naked before they died, in piles
Like Auswitch bones.

They saw how lies multiply
Exponentially, putting hearts
And minds on hold, chasing
Away the last dim lights
That flicker in torturers’ souls.

Who doesn’t want to leave
The tortured dead in their graves,
Move on to new
Distractions, erase the memory
Of Abu Graib?

We want to forget but
Can’t, forgetting isn’t the
Same as not knowing, we
Are subject to history’s judgment
And the vengeful bells still tolling.