Alone in a great city
strangers pass,
intent on jobs, crime,
shopping, terror.
I know not what.
They all look remote,
don’t say ‘good morning’,
don’t meet my gaze,
except the hostiles,
when I quickly look away.
I cannot tell
who is good, kind, normal,
smart enough to build a future.
Temporarily marooned
in a vast enclosure
I do not know what to do
to establish an identity.
We removed Saddam Hussein
because he was an evil man
gassing his people,
developing nuclear weapons,
a threat to world peace.
So elected leaders
of the good old U.S.A.,
self-appointed
international policeman,
decided arbitrarily,
against some sensible advice
that state building
replacing tyranny
with democracy
is a difficult task
in an alien land
without due process,
or civil rights,
and a fanatic clergy
opposed to Western ways.
But our elected leaders
ignored warning signs
and decided.
Saddam must go.
So we invaded Iraq,
crushed feeble resistance,
a super power
flexing its military,
and we excavated Saddam
from his hiding hole
and swift justice followed.
So we helped install
a new government
that didn’t know how to govern,
in a land divided
by race, religion, tribe.
And we proclaimed to the world
democracy was born.
But unrest was everywhere
and conflict spread
across the land.
And we withdrew our troops
and self-appointed bureaucrats,
as chaos prevailed.
Our elected leaders announced:
‘Our mission is complete’.
A newly elected
democratic government
rules the land,
so we met our goals.
Our virtuous troops
brought freedom
to a long suffering people.
But when the government
couldn’t govern,
and religious strife,
the lust for power,
erupted into bloody war
we looked the other way.
It wasn’t our problem anymore.
Our elected leaders never asked
was Iraq better off with Saddam.
And we’ll never know
if they lied to themselves,
lied to us,
or were just demented.
But the benefit of democracy,
is we get what we deserve.
They robbed my cans
for the second time
in a week.
I hustled my ass off
getting those cans
and got nothing for it.
At least they didn’t beat me.
Maybe I’ll get me a knife
and cut them good
if they try to rob me again.
Armies march in many lands.
Rebels attack in many lands.
Conflicts simmer across the globe,
boil over,
erupt
in deadly violence,
destroying lives,
property,
eradicating
aspirations for stability,
disallowing
normal pursuits,
education,
home building,
raising children,
hoping
tomorrow will be better
then the savagery today.
We go about our daily
routines,
those of us who have business,
jobs, shopping, social life,
all the activities
common to civilization,
only interrupted
by war, plague, disaster,
that thwarts plans
to build, create, acquire
whatever we desire,
while the fortunate
are allowed continuation
after the crisis is over.
'Learning Curve' is an unpublished collection concerned with the decline of Western civilization, as leading figures struggle with the issues of our times.