To Toss a Dog a Bone


She tells of a world where dogs
run in the streets with body parts in their mouths;
its relevance lost on us,
those foreign folks with all their issues;
there are so many of these people
and, of course, we know none of them.
I, do not know them or
their beautiful mystic flowing tongues,
whose musical words dance in my ears
to the beat of love and guns.
I, do not know them with their
tears-turned-fears-to-anger lives,
strapped on body packs, trigger switches,
who pray that God will pay attention
if they kill enough of His enemies,
enough of us, of everyone who scares them.
I, do not know those people who
hover-hold their laughing children
hoping to protect them from the
hoards of human locusts lining up outside to kill them,
somewhere, out there, in the TV,
as if they think they know us.
I, do not even know the friendly woman's radio voice
oozing poetry,
filling up my living room with a soldier's stunning words:
"When I died,
they washed me out of the turret, with a hose";
what am I supposed to do with that?
I, do not know if when
philosophers say of warring people,
"Without imaginations,
they have only the enthusiasts left.",
whom they judge; place in their erudite line of fire.
I, do not know what caused a woman,
someone's loving daughter, wife and mother,
victimized by what she saw,
to enter in her diary,
"Crush the heads of those vicious dogs.",
but I realize she apparently
speaks well for both sides now.

Copyright (c) 2008 Gary Brown