Reconciled
by 'quilla Saturday, Dec 1 2012, 11:11am
international / poetry / post

nothing leaves
or is ever erased --
regrets, achievements
joys and sorrows
all trail like tin cans
behind the vehicle of newly weds

running is not an option,
the rattle drives
one to distraction
if oblivion or refuge
in substances is sought

i must accept all my actions
every last one, good-bad,
the horrific, sublime
and indifferent
if peace is to be my
companion

where did i learn to deny or
avoid responsibility for
my actions/life,
was it that period in the USA
the land of reality divorced?
who can say,
i was conscious of
its cultural pathology

where did my hands learn
to kill children
via remote consoles
and label them ‘bug splat?’
what sickness has overtaken my being
that i would disregard
the life of God’s precious child?

what perverse belief accepts
the murder of innocent children,
dumb animals and the slaughter
of entire towns?

Fallujah never sleeps
its horrors
haunt the guilty and drive
the instigators insane

but i have been redeemed
i have renounced war
and killing for corporate profits,
the bottom line no longer written
in innocent blood

my name is not Stein
or Meyer
nor is my faith
perverse

with open arms only
and full embrace
i am redeemed,
and released

reconciled,
today i serve judgement
on those that continue to kill
for profit –

all arbitrary divisions overcome
today i am become my brothers’ keeper