The Hanging Moss Bookstore
Great Fiction and Poetry

Who Will Come to Save Me Now?
(written during the first Gulf War)
When did I become so hardened to human suffering?
Who is this monster I do not recognize,
who can sit in front of a T.V.
watching a war as though it were a mini-series?
Who taught me this trick
of accepting the destruction
of 20,000 people
in the blinking of an eye?
When did I learn to look at babies -
with bloated stomachs,
crawling with flies,
starving to death in countries
with names I cannot pronounce -
as though they have nothing to do with me?
Who is this creature I cannot abide:
who would sooner part
with his humanity than with his cash;
who can dismiss all of the homeless
with a backward flick of the wrist -
the way Pontius Pilate
dismissed a barefooted rebel,
dressed in rags -
like so much rubbish,
too despicable to be touched
with his clean Roman hands.
Nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Ancient Paths Magazine