KARMA

(After the bombing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, April 2024)

          Karma does not sleep through these events, nor do ghosts.  Suicide rates rise, domestic violence, depression seeps its tarry substance from the deep strata of the unconscious.  It was always there waiting, residue of cumulative trauma thickened by denial.
          The President can’t help himself, he also drags the chains of addiction to militarism, can’t help selling jet fighters and bombs to the hungry giant.  The New York Times does not consider this worth reporting.  And we wonder why the dark undertow of um rushes through the States, knocking them face down in bloodied water.  We wonder why others can’t see that this is the shell of a human being, a shell filled with explosives where a soul should be.  But the rot is also right here at home in every taxpayer’s wallet, tribute each of us pays to the Lord of the Gun.

          Let us expose the idolatry of the weapons trade,
          repudiate the blasphemous Bible salesman.
          Let us strike the chains of karma
          on the anvil of moral intelligence,
          let the names of those seven who gave
          their lives to feed the starving of Gaza
          show a way out of this darkness:

          Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha
          Laizawmi “Zoni” Frankcom
          Damian Soból
          Jacob Flinkinger
          John Chapman
          James Henderson
          James Kirby

Thomas R. Smith

(Note:  The author uses “um” to designate a former U.S. president
whose “brand” he has no wish to advertise.)

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