Mommy, the Opposing Ethno-Sociological Group Is Touching My Side of the Seat!

I heard this on the Poetry Off the Shelf podcast in reference to the first and second Iraq Wars. I disagree - I think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more apropos, or maybe the Troubles. Given the violent (but whimsical) imagery, I see why it would lead stupid people to associate it with our current two wars. But I don't think it's just about how violent America is in its foreign policy - it has more to do with how humans can't forgive wrongs, and we rarely forget.


And if you let it,  after a while vendetta can become a very fulfilling hobby.

The People of the Other Village

Thomas Lux

hate the people of this village  
and would nail our hats
to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
or staple our hands to our foreheads  
for refusing to salute them
if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
mix their flour at night with broken glass.
We do this, they do that.
They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.
We devein one of their sisters.
The quicksand pits they built were good.
Our amputation teams were better.
We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
They do this, we do that.
We canceled our sheep imports.  
They no longer bought our blankets.  
We mocked their greatest poet  
and when that had no effect  
we parodied the way they dance
which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God
was leprous, hairless.
We do this, they do that.
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.