Neil Ellman

Genocide

There is a genocide
In each of us
Thirsting to destroy
Nations, peoples, races,
Ideas that could offend
The way we think.

There is a savagery
That forages at night
Diverted only by the glow
Of lucid thought.

When daylight comes
And formless notions fade,
We are as one at last
But waiting for the darkness
To descend again:

Amakehites and Midianites,
Carthage trampled,
Armenians strangled in their beds,
A Trail of Tears to Buchenwald
And Killing Fields of
Tutsi knives on Hutu throats.

There is something in the human core
Repeated now, repeated now
And then in all futurity--

So dark,
So hideously dark.

Neil Ellman © 2009