History & its Biases

 All good brother,

swimming in the sea and Hunter S Thompson is always wise.

A good way to go

Inside this rollercoaster pipeline.

I'm enjoying my break from music.

Not sure I like writing much, sometimes it’s fun,

when I get in a Hunter like groove,

but serious writing is truly awful.

It is seriously unpleasant.

It messes up your insides.

While the World chatters as glibly and arrogantly as ever.

 

Have been meditating on suffering 

And how too often people focus on the perpetrators of crimes against humanity

And how rarely we focus on the victims/survivors.

Is it because my lot are victors of History?

And count victims/survivors as Other?

Is it the structural biases of English?

Is it mere habit of outlook? Of Practice?

I lay on the bed crying about it all Sunday afternoon,

It haunts me as I work in the Knowledge Industry,

Contributing a lot of volume,

But little that brings about anything approximating Justice

And thought I SHOULD write about it

If writing I do,

 

But frankly, 

I don't have the stomach for it.

 

Where to start, where to begin? --

Another war starts in Ethiopia

Where do they get the guns from?

Food is scarce

Are guns cheaper than potatoes?

But the victims already pile up,

Doomed to be but numbers in the World's Press.

 

Who will remember them?

Their spirit, their wisdom, their love, laughter and music?

Will the media speak their names!

Name them, 

Tell their stories

Their appetites for work

Their plans for the future

 

And demand help for them

To lessen the toll

And not chalk what's happening up as 'another' anything

Suffering is unique

Each victim is rich in variety, complexity

 

Speak up their humanity

Show us their beauty

Grant them their Rights as Humans

That is the truth of Tragedy.

 

©Malachi Doyle 2021.