Thirty Thousand Iraqi Dead

Thirty thousand Iraqis dead
the idiot emperor proudly proclaims
as he mounts the enormous
hillock of corpses.

His senses long dead from abuse,
he can not smell the biting aroma
of burnt and putrid flesh from burning phosphorus,
he has no sight left to see the carnage,
the eviscerated bullet-strewn bodies,
skulls crushed or blown apart from
uranium-hardened ordnance,
decapitated bodies,
shattered appendages,
the mangled heap of women and children,
entire families delivered to a molecular oblivion.

He has no heart left to feel the
irrevocable pain he has caused
by unleashing the cold,
relentless machinery of war.

He has no mind to conceive
the enormity of the crime
or the extent of his culpability.

Thirty thousand Iraqis dead
the idiot emperor proudly proclaims,
hoping that his people will see
the enormity of his victory over life.

All for the sake of oil
to make our pills and palm pilots
our plastics, our numberless conveniences,
to keep alive the ferocious and rapacious
demigod of consumption.

The people so numb,
the congress so corrupted
that the sight of the carnage
does not stir them,
it is such a prolonged and
perverted sleep without
the salvation of dreams.