Madam Speaker, this is written to acknowledge our collective responsibility to the human good.
It is called:
And Sarajevo Makes Me Cry
Hatred is not a contradiction
But a gruesome paradox
Cultures squeezed together no longer benign but malignant
Enmeshed in the bloodied pulp of accusation,
The living and the dead.
After-burner eyes that hold such surprise
A brief shock of pain
The sweet breath of fire
Savage passions, indecent, finally expelled
Like torched paper
To blow apart in the wind
And emerge as blood-pools
This withered generation
Small sad voices.
Our world sits on its haunches
Watching Evil's root
Envelop the thin veneer of civilization
And the deadly seeds of war scatter our history
Conflict becomes a relationship of severed parts
choking on its grief.
Our world of relevance gone mad
Where even the onlookers
Fully misunderstand.