And Then Without Violence What Is This World All About? Poem by RIC BASTASA

all the violence is this world
a country fighting another country
brothers killing brothers
could be nothing but an attempt
towards the annihilation of mankind

one wonders: is this normal? is self-destruction
a trait of humanity?
does one really have that instinct to burn his own house?
to drown his own sister? does humanity have that
habit of erasing man from the canvass of the world?

suicide is a fact
a man leaves a note saying he is tired of this world
his life has no meaning
and the only way to save himself is to
make himself extinct
on such artistic ground of
i owe nothing to this world and this world
owes nothing from me,

another one jumps from a building
mashed human potato drenched to the color of blood
sunsets beautiful sunsets
and dresses of fashionable mourning

all the violence of this world
reaped and constantly repeated has become
a truth among the series of lies
a fact, an acceptance, a norm

a jus cogens that every man must live in his heart
it is pretty normal
a man must kill for no reason sometimes.

this numbness for all the violence of the world
one sips coffee watching another bombing
killing hundreds amidst the commercial ads after

learned to live. pretty normal. and then without violence
what is this world all about?

in the park another boy is gifted with a gun
another boy plays with him
another victim playing dead another boy playing
hoodlum, killer on the loose
mercenaries of the future wars

a string of thought has carried me that far
into senselessness.