Guns and Cameras

These days, gunfire and cameras

make the same sound:

rat-a-tat,

rat-a-tat.

One kills; the other

immortalises,

what comes first?

I don’t know.

In these extreme days,

when guns crackle in snow and heat,

the cameras pan,

debris and dead bodies.

Those that didn’t face

the cold steel metal, say:

“It was me,”

“It was me,”

“that the bullet missed.”

Why? I don’t know.

Those days before Kalashnikovs,

and Berettas were invented

killing a man was called murder

“Lock ‘im up,”

“Lock ‘im up.”

Nowadays the military-industrialists,

kill millions,

yet, we hail them as keepers of democracy.

These days gunfire and cameras

make the same sound:

rat-a-tat,

rat-a-tat.

One kills; the other

immortalises,

what comes first?

I don’t know.

III/MMXVI