TO KILL FOR THE THINGS GREATER THAN OURSELVES

People who never could kill

for their own benefit

are often easily convinced to kill

for abstract ideas, for states

and the hope of states,

for supernatural beings

and their honour,

for pieces of desert and high glaciers,

for flags and crosses

and revenge

for deeds done

before they were born.

For a man who would not kill

to save his own life

can be blinded

to kill and kill again

for things that neither

breath nor can be born

in flesh,

he can be made

to build from human carcasses

edifices to the glory

of invisible beings,

and from shed blood

paint new borders.

09.06.2013-10.09.2019