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‘All too beautiful’
by sarge Saturday, Jun 1 2013, 1:17pm
international / poetry / post

from generations past
and somewhat naive,
beauty is relative, a learned
aesthetic -- a cultural product

but what carries the message
and meaning?
certainly not quaint outdated phrases,
‘it's all too beautiful’

what is so beautiful anyway?
a crack in the floor, perhaps
tripping on a favourite
psychedelic

‘it’ has never resided in the literal,
the spirit carries both the
message and the meaning

(context)

napalm and helpless,
burning villagers
in Indo-China,
or carpet-bombing Laos
and Cambodia --
a prayer before bomber crews
take to the air to do God’s work
-- and today they criticise Muslim
fundamentalists as fanatics

the US leads the world
in senseless killing, infanticide;

give war a chance in Gaza
chanted Bolton, Rice and Zion,
the result
more maimed beautiful,
all too beautiful,
innocent children

what is the popular slogan
today, “worth it,” perhaps
worth what?
a barrel of oil for the lives
of half a million Iraqi children

not cool

do not forget
an entire generation
rising up and confronting
the murderers head on
in street battles, on campuses
until VICTORY was achieved --
the war was stopped
Asian villagers once again
could tend their rice fields
and our abused boys could return home
and attempt to piece their lives
together, which they left
shattered in countless pieces
all over Asia

no-one lived in hope
they engaged reality
directly
and prevailed

fuck you and hope, Obama
your face insults
everything moral
and the needless deaths
of my comrades,
what errand will u run
for ur masters today,
Baa'rack

does a slogan
or any popular phrase
today
reveal the character of
this generation?

Yes,
“you’re either with us
or you’re with the terrorists”

“you won’t see it coming,”

“we came, we saw, he died”

but something is wrong,
all these slogans
belong to the man

where are the people?