like every song

this song, like every song
pretending to heal heartsickness or salve souls
is really about
what happens when sleep does not come.

We kill the world with our pleasures.
I who have seen only reproductions,
sad shadows of endless fear and pain and human hurt,
wonder nonetheless

at shopping malls, art buyers, social drinkers talking politics
(for what is politics but polite war
not so polite for all that)

here,

while there
dismembered parts, buyers of death,
dusty paths bare but for the mechanics of blood diamonds,
supermarkets not even a useful dream

wishing to be above the fray, I sit silent,
a part of it all