by Philip Kitcher
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| Cartoon by Zez Vaz |
In honor of his troops, he comes in black.
To save his shattered nation he needs aid.
He’s desperate. The last defense may crack.
Their only interest: to be obeyed.
No ghost from Bucha whispers in this room,
a precinct where the truth is not allowed.
He craves security. They talk of doom.
He asks for help. They offer him a shroud.
Their callous lips mouth platitudes of peace,
heedless of all the wounds his people feel.
Their “gift”: an interval for war to cease—
and, in exchange, demand that he should kneel.
More than a nation’s honor’s left for dead;
they do more than encourage future strife;
the damage wreaked within this room will shred
the moral fabric that sustains our life.
What are these creatures in their costly suits,
obsessed with vulgar thoughts of squalid gain?
Do they know what divides us from the brutes?
We’re fully human as we are humane.
Indifferent to their or others’ crimes,
to any words a moralist might pen:
what foul distemper has convulsed our times
to vomit forth such parodies of men?
To save his shattered nation he needs aid.
He’s desperate. The last defense may crack.
Their only interest: to be obeyed.
No ghost from Bucha whispers in this room,
a precinct where the truth is not allowed.
He craves security. They talk of doom.
He asks for help. They offer him a shroud.
Their callous lips mouth platitudes of peace,
heedless of all the wounds his people feel.
Their “gift”: an interval for war to cease—
and, in exchange, demand that he should kneel.
More than a nation’s honor’s left for dead;
they do more than encourage future strife;
the damage wreaked within this room will shred
the moral fabric that sustains our life.
What are these creatures in their costly suits,
obsessed with vulgar thoughts of squalid gain?
Do they know what divides us from the brutes?
We’re fully human as we are humane.
Indifferent to their or others’ crimes,
to any words a moralist might pen:
what foul distemper has convulsed our times
to vomit forth such parodies of men?
Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His new book The Rich and the Poor (Polity Press) is all about the costs of abandoning morality in politics and public life. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.
