At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this?
And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?
from “A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck”
by Ilya Kaminsky
They say there is an art or science to it. Big thinking and elegant
solutions hatched in the night. The homo faber of modern flight
to deliver instant immolation. Simply put, what is it other than
a vigorous activity where two groups agree to murder each other?
As there are war crimes, are there then war noncrimes?
Can they drop bombs one day and then loaves of the bread the next?
Crime has its antonyms: goodness, morality, virtue. But can there
then be good war? Good wounds. Good death. Excellent
torture. Wonderful destruction. Eternal peace brought by flames.
Orwell, that keen student of language, knew the game. Framed
as making peace, killing works out so very well for the killers.
He knew how words and images could elevate the enterprise
to a thing of beauty blessed by all mankind and the Almighty.
JL Pracki is an international school English teacher and online editor who writes every day and who, over the years, has created thousands of poems by following William Stafford’s model of daily writing. Originally from Wisconsin, he attended the University of Illinois-Chicago.
