20th century dead

Dead

Hell, they’re just black savages.

3,000,000 / Belgian Congo

The virile Mao took an annual swim

in his river of blood.

56,000,000 / China

Would the rotting corpses, end-to-end, reach the moon?

And their stench reach the nose of the Emperor?

1,750,000 / Japan

A carpet of dead bodies

so a few could wipe their feet.

20,000,000 / World War I

How many disemboweled bodies, hearts exploded,

brains splattered, souls lost in frozen mud?

25,000,000 / Soviet Russia

Men, women and children became meat.

Spirit became meat. Victory must be fed.

55,000,000 / World War II

.

Killing neighbors, friends, brothers, children,

really meant killing themselves.

600,000 / Spain

Severed limbs and hacked bodies. Blood-screams

of hate and powerlessness. Whispers of non-violence

1,000,000 / India-Pakistan

Whomever you kill, bathe in their blood, lie in the grave with

them. Explain the madness.

4,000,000 / Korea

Some died in vain. Some  innocent. Some scared. Some in battle.

Some believing. Some by their own hand. Some heroes.

Some still remain the living dead.

3,000,000 / Vietnam

Their mourners, flies and maggots. Their shrouds, parched earth.

Their coffins, the arms of their mothers.

8,000,000 / Nigeria

Night after night…TV. Piles of empty eyes

at the moment just before…

2,500,000 / Ethiopia

Rouge. Red. Blood. Stains. Spurts. Warm. Spill. Soak.

Hack. Slash. Wash. Eat. Drink. Piss. Fuck. Die.

1,700,000 / Khmer Rouge

Each bullet propelled by a good cause. Each body torn open

for the very best reason. Each child dead for the political good.

1,700,000 / Afghanistan

God permitted us to shoot them down, to cut them down,

to rape them down, to stand tall on mountains of their dead flesh.

1,000,000 / Iran-Iraq

Dead.