From a distance

Book 34 Page 11

From a distance

The soldiers kill.

Standing / shooting from way off in the distance

On the top of a hill.

Or whilst flying high

Dropping bombs high in the sky.

Way up there you don’t need to think of

the people who will suffer or die.

For from a comfortable distance

Soldiers learn how to kill.

For somehow from a distance

They can avoid a thorough examination of how the enemy may feel.

Sitting behind a sanitized

computerize desk

One cannot possibly see, (or even begin to imagine what happens to life,)

once the button is pressed.

For killing from a distance is easier,

Killing from the shelter of an armored tank.

Firing rounds upon orders,

from the psychological distance, of a lower rank.

And so from the protective shelter of ‘distance,’

All manner of things are much easier to carry out.

For one may draw some comfort in not being able to hear the enemy cries,

And pleads for mercy, or agonizing shouts.

For from a distance,

everything is somehow made ‘bearably fine,’

As if things are not actually happening in your personal space,

Or even in your time.

For in war,

killing becomes, ‘mystically O.K ’

From that magical, mind numbing distance

Far away.

And so, as all this happens from a distance,

we watch the war unfold,

On our television screens.