How do we understand?

how do we understand these long shadows
we drag with us
the human species?
Rwanda Hiroshima
Auscwitch the Holy Inquisition

calculated terror perpetrated by the state
leaving behind the disappeared damaged dismembered
charred victims of war
whose wounds ooze what remains
of our collective humanity

the maiden the wheel the rack the pear
the midieval instruments of torture
in no way surpassed gruesome modern techologies of war
white phosphorus cluster bombs drones
new and improved MK77 napalm bombs
depleted uranium-coated missiles
all built with profits extracted from our labor

an unbridled destructive imagination
to whom can we attribute its horrors?
how do we understand
these shadows dragging behind us
spewing blood?
tingeing our hands with a stain
that who the hell knows how to remove?

por Lorena Wolfman © 2009